


Creation Was Their Purpose

by language_teacherz_rule



Series: Iron Spark [1]
Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: All-Spark created Baby Bots, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, More tags to come when they won't spoil the story, baby bots, single parent tony, so adorably cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-06-07 03:19:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 47,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6783127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/language_teacherz_rule/pseuds/language_teacherz_rule
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Howard Stark found more than one cube in the Arctic.  What difference might encountering the All Spark as a young, lonely, genius inventor make in the life of Tony Stark?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Beginning was...

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first posted fanfic. Please help me improve with suggestions and comments. I have no beta, so if I have missed any grammatical errors, please let me know, and I will correct them. This work is well on its way to completed (over 50,000 words) and will be updated weekly. I hope you enjoy! Love, LTR 
> 
> Suppose I should include the legal stuff: I don't own any of these fandoms, and will return them only slightly scuffed to their original locations when I am done with them. I am basically broke, I live in a single room cabin in the middle of no where and own only my four year old laptop, so you probably shouldn't bother suing me.

Six-year-old Tony Stark snuck into his father’s office quietly. The man was home from looking for Captain America, and Tony wanted to see him. Before his father had left he’d promised to build something with Tony, and he wanted to ask him about it. He snuck around the corner of the desk and stood transfixed, staring at the beautiful, exotic metal box that sat innocuously on the end of his father’s desk, while his father was in a chair in the corner, sipping from a glass with a furious scowl on his features. 

This box wasn’t Captain America, so his dad wasn’t impressed, but Tony couldn’t take his eyes off it. The lines that covered its surface mesmerised him, and he crept closer, keeping carefully low, out of his father’s line of sight. He had realised after entering the room that the man was currently on his ‘just returned’ low - meaning if Tony got his attention right now, it would end badly for him. He knew he should creep back out of the room, but the box caught his eye and held him hypnotised. 

The six year old reached up to trace one of the lines, which from up close he could see was lightly pulsing with a pale blue energy. As soon as his finger made contact, the glow increased and Tony’s hand went stiff and unresponsive, as though it didn’t belong to him anymore. The lines were etching their way down his arm, quickly eating up his skin, covering it in brilliant designs. It didn’t hurt, in fact it felt comfortingly warm, but he couldn’t get away from it and he didn’t like that. 

He gritted his teeth against the fear and kept quiet because even though he couldn’t move (and he wasn’t sure that he could make noise either but he didn’t try) this didn’t hurt, and catching his father’s attention right now would. So he stilled his voice and rode out the strange sensation. 

He could feel the warmth rising up the side of his neck, then it was behind his ear, and then…something strange was happening. The warmth…it was inside his mind. It felt like getting a warm hug (a very rare experience for Tony), and there was a murmuring that was almost like speech, but just outside of audible range. Overall, it left him with a feeling of acceptance. The lines disconnected form the cube and his hand dropped to his lap. He watched them streaming up his arm until his vision whited out, and he came to curled on the floor next to the table where the cube still sat, appearing completely innocuous. There was a warm feeling beneath his breastbone, one that he had never felt before, and he slipped back out of the room, not conscious of the fact that he no longer felt the driving need to get his father to notice him, whether the attention was good or bad. 

~~~@@@~~~  
Tony drew, his pencil flying across the paper with a speed and precision that his six year old fingers had never before possessed. Before (he called it Before because something had definitely changed) he could do this, but it had required a lot more time, patience, erasers and rulers to create what he was now doing completely freehand. Now his ideas, which seemed to be constantly multiplying and expanding, ran out onto the paper with a speed and fluency that he could not believe. 

The current design wouldn’t work until he was able to build several of his previous designs, but he just needed to get them down on paper. He was fairly sure once this was down and he had the whole set, he would be able to go back to building again. He had his own workshop - his father had agreed when he’d asked, because it kept Tony out of his hair. At least half the reason Tony had shared the man’s workshop had been to see him, but now with that warm feeling inside him he didn’t feel the same need for his father’s recognition. He felt as though there was someone there, approving of him, encouraging him, pushing him to do more, do better, be better. 

He dreamed now, amazing dreams, of robots who lived - not just did a task over and over, but truly lived, just like him. He occasionally sketched - not designed, just drew - those robots, and the cities where they lived. He gave them names - Orion Pax, Megatron and Iron Hide were three of the robots, while Iacon, Kalis, Helix and more were cities - he wasn’t quite sure where those came from, but they were pretty to look at even if they were made up, which he wasn’t sure of. 

He sat and drew, numbers and ideas dancing through his head on at least four different tangents even as he concentrated on getting the final parts of the finished engine down on paper. When done, if he was correct, it would be radically more efficient than any engine currently on the market, requiring only a fraction of the fuel that they did for the same amount of work. He would need to show his father the plans for that one - it involved heavy work and dangerous equipment, and he wasn’t allowed to do those kinds of things alone. Small work, soldering, making computer parts was allowed, but Howard did have enough sense to keep back SOME things. 

When he’d finished the blueprints for the robot that he was designing - it would have to wait until he had built its power source and a number of circuit boards, among other things - he gathered the blueprints and calculations for the engine and left his workshop. He rolled them up together and went looking for his father. 

Howard, having been home for a full fortnight, was more or less out of his post-trip slump and Tony knew (since he’d been happy enough four days ago to grant Tony’s request of a workshop of his own) that he should be safe enough to approach. He paused in the doorway, carefully assessing the scene - it looked safe enough; there was a coffee cup but no glasses on his father’s desk, and the decanter was on the other side of the room. 

“Father?” he said, cautiously, “can I show you something?” 

Howard looked up from his desk, blinking heavily as his eyesight adjusted from squinting at the pages in front of him to looking at his son. There was a very brief frown, then he sat back and nodded. “Sure, Tony. I could use a break from this anyway; the equations are doing my head in. Clean energy is definitely the future, but it’s going to take us a while to get there. What’ve you got there?” 

“It’s an engine design,” Tony told him, holding out the rolled up papers. 

“Bring it over here,” Howard told him, leading the way to a larger table, currently clear. Tony laid the papers down and unrolled them, putting the pages of calculations to one side and spreading the drawings out for his father to peruse. 

Howard leaned forward to examine the drawings, at first somewhat lackadaisical and enjoying the break from his serious work, but that swiftly changed as he stared down at the images, eyes widening in amazement. He picked up the page of equations and leafed through them, eyes darting back and forth between them and the drawings. 

“Will you help me build it?” Tony asked, shy. “I really want to build it, but I can’t use everything that would be required…”

“We’ll have to machine a lot of these parts, but Tony, if this works…every auto manufacturer is going to be paying good money to use YOUR design,” he grinned down at the boy and he felt a flush of pleasure at the regard. “You’ll have changed the world. This is going to make cars about fifty times more affordable to run, if we can actually get it to work, it’s going to be…amazing.” He clapped a hand to Tony’s shoulder, and Tony was reminded of why he loved his father. When his dad wasn’t drunk or pissed off about not finding Captain America, he was kind and fun. The problem was that these times came so few and far between, and he wasn’t always good at gauging when it wasn’t these times, and those miscalculations tended to end painfully for him. 

His father didn’t question how Tony had come up with the design, nor how he had done the extremely advanced mathematics. He just accepted that, as his son, Tony could do it. 

~~~@@@~~~

They spent a week in and out of his father’s workshop, and Tony got to use a lot more of the equipment than he expected to be permitted around. He was fairly sure that before touching the cube he wouldn’t have been strong enough to use most of it, but he was a lot stronger now. 

They finished the engine and began testing it, and it performed exactly to specifications. Howard was amazed with it. He was sitting in his office, Tony perched beside him on a tall stool Howard had brought in just for him, when Tony saw the other papers. His father was busy, so Tony quietly leafed through them, looking over the calculations carefully. The numbers fly through his head and he sees what his dad is trying to do, and what he needs to do it right - no, to do it even better, but after a moment’s thought he realised that would be a mistake and set out merely to match his father’s aims. 

Rather than write on Howard’s papers (that was always a mistake) Tony pulled a blank pad closer to himself and began to write his own calculations. The numbers ran through his head and out onto the paper, and it felt like they were explaining themselves to him as they went, teaching him even as he wrote them down. The warm feeling under his breastbone pulsed with something that felt a lot like his father’s approval, and Tony had to clamp his teeth shut to keep in his giggle. This was fun! A quiet voice in his head started explaining to him exactly how the energy creation worked and created energy without harmful byproducts. This was what some of his bigger projects would need - he just hadn’t realised it yet. 

He finished and looked up to see his father watching him, a soft expression on his face that he wasn’t used to. 

“Having fun?” he asked, his tone oddly gentle. Tony nodded, then quietly extended the pad for his father to look at. Howard took it, and Tony waited to see his reaction. Howard’s brow creased as he looked over the equations, then pulled over his own papers and looked at them. “Tony…” there was wonder in his father’s voice, and Tony felt a thrill of hope. “Tony, how did you…” Tony looked up to find his father eyeing him oddly. “How did you know how to do this, Tony?” he asked, a frown marring his face. He doesn’t look angry, though, so Tony tries to explain. 

“The numbers told me how they work,” he told him. “See, this here…” he’s off, telling his father exactly what the numbers had told him as they ran through his mind and out his fingers, explaining exactly how everything worked together to create energy. 

Howard just nodded, looking over the numbers. Tony felt something else, itching away in his mind, but he also felt a need to keep it private, like his other plans, the ones in his own workshop. He could see how to make the reactor much, much smaller - but he didn’t share that with his father. He didn’t know why, but he just knew that this was his, private, thing. 

He left Howard about ten minutes later, still looking over the numbers. He went back to his own workshop, where several of the things he had ‘ordered’ (requested that Jarvis get for him, that is) and began the assembly of the first part of his new friend - a series of tiny circuit boards.


	2. Dummy and Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony looked down at the little robot. It was as long as his leg, and it was finished except for one thing - it had no power source.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has taken the time to read this and leave Kudos or even a comment! I value them all! I really hope you enjoy this chapter - look, baby bots! Have fun!

Tony looked down at the little robot. It was as long as his leg, and it was finished except for one thing - it had no power source. He hadn’t intended to assemble it without the power source, but the warmth had urged it on him, so he did.

It had taken more than six months for him to build (he was seven now), and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that the computer that was inside of it was the most amazing thing on the planet, because it could do things that the building sized super computers couldn’t even dream of. It had taken a lot of work - so much of it so tiny and fiddly he didn’t understand how he could see it to work at that level, but his eyesight had simply seemed to compensate - and now, finally, it was done, except that he had no way to turn it on. 

Now he stared down at it, trying to figure out what came next, when the Warmth suddenly stretched out, down his arm. ‘This part’s mine,’ the voice whispered to him, and his hand, of its own volition, settled on the robot’s chest. He watched as light suddenly sprang from his fingertips down into the small form lying on the table and washed through it before contracting back into the little cavity inside its chest and settling into a soft glow that reminded Tony of his father’s giant arc reactor. 

The little robot jerked once, and its head turned, the eyes flickering once, then twice before settling into a soft, blue glow. 

“Hello,” Tony said softly, not really sure what he had made but knowing that it needed input from him. 

It chirped, staring at him, and he felt the glow inside him give of a definite sense of combined affection and smugness. Tony reached down to the little bot and took its hand, laughing softly when the little fingers wrapped around one of his, like a baby. ‘A Sparkling’ the still warm voice whispered in his mind with a soft laugh. 

~~~@@@~~~

Little Dummy, as Tony had named him, adored his creator. Whenever he was awake, all he wanted to do was be with Tony - Tony didn’t have to interact with him, although that was good too, but Dummy just wanted to be wherever Tony was. He watched Tony carefully, and (as much as he was able) tried to emulate him. Considering that he couldn’t even crawl yet, that mostly meant sitting against Tony’s chest and making grabby hands at whatever Tony was holding. 

Right now, Tony was teasing Dummy by dangling a string in front of his face, swinging it back and forth. He wasn’t pulling it away from Dummy’s hands - that would be cruel, and Dummy wasn’t a pet - he was just watching Dummy try harder and harder to capture it. He slowed the pace it was swaying by minutely as Dummy’s chirps changed pitch ever so slightly, indicating his rising frustration with the exercise. With a trill of triumph, Dummy grabbed the string, yanking it out of Tony’s grasp. 

Then, like every baby Tony had heard of, he shoved it into his mouth, muttering about it to himself and to Tony, who tried very hard not to laugh at the fact that string, apparently, felt very strange and tickle-y. 

“Are you hungry?” Tony carefully juggled Dummy around. The bot was large enough that his lack of motor control made him slightly awkward, but the greater strength and dexterity that Tony had noted in his own movements made it possible. Dummy immediately spat out the string and grabbed for Tony’s fingers to stuff them into his mouth. The first time this had happened and Tony had felt the odd sensation of liquid seeping out his fingers he had completely freaked out, but Dummy had had a near death-grip on his hand, so he couldn’t yank it out. He was stuck, hyperventilating, as he tried to understand what the hell was going on with his body, until the Warmth had sent a comforting, calming surge through him and showed him, in pictures and words, exactly what was going on. 

Now, he just grinned as his little friend ate, his tiny feet kicking in the air as he gurgled happily. It was good to have a friend, and the support and caring of the Warmth was a constant, comforting companion. 

~~~@@@~~~

No one ever came into Tony’s workshop. He kept it clean himself so that he ‘wouldn’t have to worry about his things being moved’, and his parents were home so infrequently that neither of them were going to waste time going into Tony’s space. He made sure to design and/or build enough things that he could show them to keep them from wondering what he did in there all day, though. 

Among other things, he gave his father designs for two more engines (one for planes, one for motorbikes) and a wind turbine that could generate electricity much more effectively than anything on the market. 

He built a computer that took up only a single wall rather than an entire room (nothing to him, of course, after the circuitry and programming for his little ‘bot) with such incredible capacities compared to what was on the market that his father could hardly believe it, even as he studied and used it. He’d gotten another magazine spread for that one, just like he had for the engine that three different car companies now paid him for the rights to use, while six more were tied up in lawsuits for patent infringement. Many people had wanted to talk to Tony after the computer, but his father had protected him and denied them access, which he was grateful for. He was afraid that someone would find things he didn’t want them to find, after all. 

He designed things he didn’t like, too, things his father wanted him to design - weapons. He hated doing it, and felt how the Warmth didn’t like it either, but they both acknowledged it as a necessity to keep the Sparkling safe. They would work together and do anything needed to keep the Sparkling safe. Still, Tony hated it, and it always left him feeling queasy. 

~~~@@@~~~

Two years passed and Tony had three Sparklings hiding in his workshop. He hid them because, while he knew they were alive, he was afraid how others would perceive them. He was afraid they would be taken away to be studied, and they really were babies. They learned, but only the oldest - Dummy - could walk yet, and even he still went better with crawling. None of them could speak English yet, and Tony had the feeling that they wouldn’t be able to for a long time. Butterfingers was just starting to crawl, while the unfortunately named You could now sit up and roll over, but hadn’t gotten to the stage of motor control where he could push himself up on his arms. 

Naming You hadn’t been Tony’s fault, not really (that was his story and he was sticking to it.) All he’d said was, “Hello you,” and that was it. The little Bot had bonded the word into his coding, and there was nothing to be done about it. Maybe one day Tony could get him to accept a name that had ‘You’ as a part of it, but today was not that day. 

While they couldn’t talk English, the little Bots did communicate with each other and Tony in what he could only think of as Sparkling Speak. The chirps - which he could understand, no doubt a gift from the Warmth that still resided in his chest and mind and which taught him so much - were rudimentary, like a toddler using single words, but he could understand them. He spoke to them in English and occasionally the Warmth spoke through him to them in a more advanced form of the chirping language. They didn't seem to mind what he spoke to them in, so long as he spent some time every day with them, and that was no hardship. He had, essentially, become a parent at age six, but when your ‘child’ spent at least eighteen hours of every day asleep and was content with just a fraction of its waking time being spent interacting with you so long as it had your presence and toys the rest of the time, that wasn’t so hard. He did have to ‘feed’ them everyday - although really that was the Warmth’s job, Tony just had to place a finger in each of their mouths and the Warmth would feed them a trickle of the energy they required. 

Now, he was working on something more advanced, according to the Warmth. It was apparently possible, but much more difficult, to create one of the robots that was already past its ‘infancy’ - rather than a Sparkling, a Youngling. If he could do this properly, he would have a robot roughly the same size as himself, capable of much more than the other three currently were - although they would be one day, the impression he got from the Warmth was that they would be Sparklings for a long time yet - years and years, longer than Tony could really comprehend at this point, and he was going to need someone to help him with them when he went to college, which was only a few years away now if his tutors were to be believed. 

The reason it was so hard to create a Youngling as opposed to a Sparkling was programming. A Sparkling’s programming was very basic, and now that Tony looked at the code he was writing out for the Youngling he realised just how much of even the Sparkling programming had been done by the Warmth. Of course it had - while he was their parent and had created them, he could never have done so without it. Thinking about it, he guessed that made them both parents, but he dismissed the notion as he focussed on the code for the child which, while temporally the youngest would be the oldest of his brood.


	3. Is Bigger Better?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was three years later, and all three of the little ‘bots were walking, and awake for more than twelve hours a day now, the day that Tony onlined their big brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I looked at the length of my chapters and decided I would speed up my posting schedule a bit to make up for it. It should now be Sunday/Wednesday, provided nothing comes up. Thanks for reading, please point out any mistakes! LTR

It was three years later, and all three of the little ‘bots were walking, and awake for more than twelve hours a day now, the day that Tony onlined their big brother. In honour of the man who took more care of Tony than anyone else on earth, he named him Jarvis. He kind of wished he could introduce the two of them, but he was just too worried about what could happen to his ‘kids’ if anyone found out about them. 

Tony watched as the larger bot jerked when the energy entered it, spreading through its limbs before pooling back into its chest. Its glowing eyes locked onto Tony’s face and he smiled down at it gently. “Hello there.” 

“Hello,” Jarvis replied, startling Tony a little. He knew that Jarvis had the ability to produce English as well as Sparkling Speech, but to hear one of his children speak English for the first time…it was something else. He felt a flare of pride and satisfaction - his own and the Warmth’s - and grinned wider down at the bot. 

“Want to try getting up?” he offered, and after a moment Jarvis took his extended hands and allowed them to help him to his feet. He’d had to online Jarvis on the floor, since if he came online on the table getting him down would have been problematic. 

The three smaller bots were clustered behind Tony, staring up at their big brother, utterly silent (a highly unusual occurrence). Dummy grabbed a fistful of Tony’s pants, staring up at the bigger bot, who had just noticed them. 

“Hello,” Jarvis said softly, staring down at his little brothers. 

Dummy chirped once, an almost frightened squeak of a sound, and buried himself into the back of Tony’s leg. Tony chuckled and reached down behind him to pat Dummy’s head. “It’s alright, silly. This is your big brother, Jarvis. I’m sure he’d like to play with you. How about you show him your toys?” Tony had learned when he onlined the other two Sparklings that the best way to get Dummy, and then Butterfingers, to engage with the newcomer without fear was to give them something to do that involved that person. Granted, there was more fear involved this time because Jarvis was so much bigger than them, but the method still worked. Dummy chirped again, this time sounding excited, then almost ran (he didn’t quite have it down yet but he was getting faster) across the workshop to grab his favourite toy and show it to his ‘big brother’. 

Jarvis, who had amazing physical control considering he had just come online, sat down on the floor to allow the Sparklings to approach him. Dummy came first, waving the interlocking rings over his head as he did, while Butterfingers and You came together behind their older brother. They clustered around Jarvis, who smiled and chirped at them cheerfully, falling into ‘Sparkling Speak’ as he got to know them, touching each of them in turn and listening to them chatter away as they became more excited about the new addition. 

Tony smiled as he watched his ‘boys’ interact. Jarvis gently lifted You, who had stumbled over empty air, back into his feet and clucked comfortingly to the smaller bot before giving him an encouraging little push in the direction he’d been travelling previously, on his way to retrieve a toy of his own. 

“Creator?” Tony jerked as he realised that Jarvis was addressing him. 

“Yes, Jarvis? You don’t need to call me that, by the way. I’m just Tony.” 

The bot, who stood about three inches shorter than Tony, seemed to frown. “That does not seem…respectful,” he said, slowly. “Is it not proper to address the one who created you with a title?” 

Tony bit his lip. He didn’t know what to say to them. Jarvis was right, but Tony was only twelve! He might acknowledge the fact that he was kind of a parent, but he worked very hard not to actually THINK about it. It was easy to ignore that the Sparklings did call him Daddy because it didn’t happen in English. “I suppose,” he acknowledged after a moment. 

“If you do not like ‘Creator’, how should I address you?” Jarvis asked, clearly confused. 

“Well, Creator is okay, if that’s what you like,” Tony hedged. He really didn’t want to offer the more human options. “I just hadn’t thought about it, is all.” 

“Creator, then. I believe Butterfingers is hungry,” Tony turned to see Butterfingers sitting, tiny hands moving aimlessly as he drooped in place - all signs of a hungry, or sleepy, little bot. 

“Aw, come here, buddy,” he lifted the little bot and offered him a finger, which he eagerly latched onto. Tony felt the warmth flow down his arm and into Butterfingers, who made a happy gurgling sound around the finger and grabbed onto Tony’s hand. 

Tony clucked and hummed to the little bot, who finally released Tony’s finger and giggled up at him. He stayed in Tony’s lap for a few minutes, playing with his fingers and clucking to him, telling him about his day, which always amused Tony, hearing the little bot’s impressions of what he’d already seen. He finally pushed out of Tony’s lap and made his way back to the other bots, who were now involved in a group game passing a series of balls back and forth. 

~~~@@@~~~

Packing to go to college was a difficult proposition. There was no way Tony could, or would, leave the bots behind - they were dependent, very literally, upon him for sustenance. Besides, they were his friends, his family; he wasn’t going to leave them. Still, he feared that hiding them would be much harder there than here. Then there was the packing process, of course, but Tony had that figured out. He could push the bots into a deeper ‘sleep’ and pack them in with his clothes. They would wake up again when he took them out and fed them, which meant that the two day travel timetable he had been given wouldn’t be an issue. 

He had explained the move to the Bots, and they agreed to sleep until he woke them up, when it was safe. The three Sparklings simply trusted their ‘daddy’ to take care of them, and he gently soothed them into sleep, wrapping each in several layers of thick blanket before putting them into a duffle to smuggle into his bedroom. Jarvis was harder, not because he didn’t trust Tony, but simply because he was so much bigger than the other three. He went to sleep, but getting him into a bag was a much harder proposition. 

Tony finally managed it, and successfully smuggled the four robots to the enormous apartment that his parents had purchased for him to live in during college. He had a workshop there, too, he discovered, twice the size of his old one (a gift from his father that he was, truly, grateful for). He set up the same rules that he had at home - that he would keep the space clean himself and no one else was to enter it, so that no one else could mess with his things. 

Once he had set up a security system for the workshop that would maintain his instructions - just to be sure - he carefully released first Jarvis, then the three Sparklings from their confinement and woke them up. They were excited to explore the room while Tony carefully unpacked their toys, then explored himself, checking out the new ‘toys’ he now had available. His own arc welder, a full set of machining tools, everything that he would need to do much heavier construction than he’d done until now. He grinned, then turned his attention back to his kids, who were proving that they really were learning systems and had learned how to play soccer from watching it. Of course, at least half the play was stumbling and trying to kick the ball , like any group of toddlers while Jarvis, who was much more serious than Tony had expected, watched over them, picked them up and gave them tips on what to do. 

Tony cut himself a new sheet of paper from the giant roll on the wall and started to design the computer that he intended would take away any need for paper at all. In its final incarnation it wouldn’t be suitable for public use - simply too advanced and too expensive to build, but for Tony’s personal use it was going to be so worthwhile.


	4. College Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> College, Rhodey and Bots, oh my!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late, guys, I had a bit of an accident over the weekend and our internet was really bad yesterday, I couldn't get through. Hope you enjoy, please point out any mistakes I make! 
> 
> Someone asked what the bots look like - while there is a brief description in this chapter, let me say, I imagine them kind of like mini, plain grey (currently), weaponless Transformers. Like Bumblebee but, you know, smoller. Or alternately the armour but with a mobile face and round eyes. Either of these will basically work. 
> 
> LTR

The social side of college baffled Tony. The only people he had ever interacted with, and he did mean EVER, were adults and his bots, and even the adults had been few and far between. His parents, Jarvis and a few other staff members and his tutors were it. He never left the estate, and his parents never held events there, preferring to use the house in New York for that. He had absolutely no experience with the teenager of his own species, and he wasn’t sure that he liked most of what he saw. Tony felt no need for companionship. The Warmth always kept him company, comforted, supported and taught him. His bots loved him and talked and played with him, so he never really missed the absence of human playmates. 

He remembered being desperate for his parent’s attention, but that desperation no longer gripped him, and hadn’t since the moment he had touched the Cube and the Warmth had joined him. Now he was never without comfort or support, never left wanting for love or attention. He watched as the older, but so much younger seeming, humans around him did stupid things to get the attention and affection of others, and couldn’t understand it. Sure, he thought maybe it would be nice to have a friend, but he didn’t really understand humans. His bots made sense to him (maybe because the Warmth had explained them to him or maybe just because he was with them so much) but humans were a complete mystery. He really had not spent very many hours in the company of humans in his life; certainly a much smaller percentage than he’d spent alone with just the Warmth and his Bots for company. 

Now, with classes and lab time he was forced to spend a much greater part of his time around them, and he found that while they confused him, they mostly didn’t like him, either. They either ignored him or tried to suck up to him, which he ignored. His lab partners were disgusted at the idea of teaming up with a ‘little boy’, and dismissive of his ideas and contributions until they saw what he could do - then they just started leaving all of the work to him. 

He really wasn’t enjoying the whole ‘college experience’ much. Mostly what it meant was being a long way away from Jarvis (the human Jarvis, the adult who had had most positive impact on Tony’s development) and being kept away from his bots and workroom for hours at a time. 

He was heading to the campus library, a heavy bag on his back and two large rolls of paper held against his chest when They came at him. The Psi Delta Alphas had decided that they didn’t like Tony and unlike most, who expressed this dislike by ignoring him, they preferred to catch him when there were only a few people around and forcibly impart their message. Tony tucked his head down and tried to get past the group of pledges who had apparently taken their senior’s dislike as a declaration of open season, but it wasn’t happening. 

They circled around him, laughing and talking literally over the top of his head, insults about how pathetic he was and how he wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for his father’s money. Tony didn’t understand how they thought his father having money had anything to do with him entering college at age thirteen having already tested out of a bunch of bachelors degrees. 

The warmth was fizzing, a protective anger radiating from it. He’d felt that before, too, and knew that unfortunately it didn’t mean much in terms of actual protection. It did, however, mean a lot in terms of his own physical resilience and speed of healing. He’d learned that from his father, when he’d been unable to stay out of reach of the man’s bad side. The beatings hadn’t broken a bone since he’d touched the cube, and he’d healed in hours or at the most days what used to take him weeks. He knew that this was because of the Warmth, but he could feel the frustrated anger it felt at being unable to protect him more. 

This anger was swelling inside him now as the first pledge lunged forward, grabbing for Tony’s plans. Tony didn’t want to crush them, but he wanted to give them up even less, so he clutched them much tighter to his chest and ducked away, only to be grabbed by one of the guys behind him. He yanked him back then shoved him forwards and Tony stumbled. One of the boys on the other side of the circle grabbed him again and shoved him in another direction. 

He’d been tossed back and forth half a dozen times when, with an enraged shout, the kid he was currently being tossed towards was yanked out of the circle and thrown away, then Tony was caught in surprisingly gentle hands. He was pushed behind a much larger body and penned there with two arms that angled back on either side of him. 

“You little shits make me sick,” snarled a deep voice. “Squad, form up!” there was a pounding of heavy boots, and a wall of bodies formed around Tony. Now that he (and the Warmth) were calming down, he could see the uniforms. “It seems we have some bullies on our campus,” the man who had pulled Tony out of the circle said, head turning left and right as he surveyed the group. “Rhodes. Check the kid out, make sure he’s okay. If he is, make sure he gets to where he was going. The rest of you…let’s show these boys how Wolf Squad handles bullies, shall we? Let’s take them for a run.” 

“HOO-RAH,” the ROTC - they must have been ROTC - members shouted back, then they were moving past Tony at a steady run, forming up around the pledges and started chivying them along, pushing them into a steady, mile eating run by dint of simply giving them no where to go but forward. Soon only one of them was left by Tony, a friendly looking African-American who grinned down at him. 

“How you doin’ there, kid? Anything broken?” 

“Only my pride and about five hours worth of work,” Tony replied with a slight shrug. “Arseholes messed up my designs. I’ll survive.” 

“I’m James Rhodes, by the way, but everyone calls me Rhodey. First year Aeronautical Engineering and Thermodynamical Engineering, under the AFROTC.”

“I’m Tony,” Tony took the older kid’s hand, and quickly found that he had a strong but not too strong grip to go with his friendly, kind smile. “Tony Stark.” 

~~~@@@~~~

By the end of the month, Tony and Rhodey were virtually inseparable. The older boy had first decided that Tony needed someone to watch out for him (probably not unfairly), and Tony had helped Rhodey with a couple of projects. Rhodey, after observing Tony for a few days, decided that Tony also just needed to spend more time around people - more people than just Rhodey. He had decided that Tony was going to be joining his dojo, and that was all there was to it. 

So Tony found himself in the beginners class in a dojo where they really seemed to care about more than just physical prowess. There was a lot of emphasis placed upon personal responsibility and growth, and that was actually difficult for Tony - not because he didn’t fulfil it, but because he didn’t have a ‘guardian’ to sign off. In fact, he probably shouldn’t have even been a member, but Rhodey had pulled some strings. It didn’t change the fact that Tony didn’t have anyone to sign off on his paperwork. The only staff at the apartment was a cook/housekeeper, who left meals in the fridge, cleaned the common areas and otherwise ignored Tony. She was meant to live in the apartment, but she actually didn’t, and Tony was glad of it.

Still, Tony didn’t begrudge the extra difficulty or the time spent away from the house, because it brought him his first human friend. He enjoyed the physical activity and found himself learning more about kids his own age and how to interact with them. The whole thing was fun, and he had more fun with it by teaching the bots some of the moves. Unsurprisingly, Jarvis took to it best with his higher physical control, but the three Sparklings enjoyed it and could often be seen practicing strikes and blocks agains the mini manikins Tony set up for them. 

Tony had his first real birthday party (one that included more than cake with Jarvis followed by a long visit with his bots) after a session at the dojo. It was a trip for pizza, and everyone sang him happy birthday and gave him cards. His shock hit Rhodey hard and the older boy found himself questioning what exactly was wrong with Tony’s parents, that they didn’t care about the amazing, smart, loving kid that they had produced. 

~~~@@@~~~

Tony finished his first year at MIT with his first two Masters degrees and three more bachelors. He wasn’t going back to upstate New York, choosing instead staying at the apartment and continuing his studies over the summer semester. Rhodey had decided to stay around as well, but since he wasn’t enrolled he didn’t have accommodation. Tony simply opened another bedroom in the apartment to his friend, and that lead directly to their current situation. 

Tony was used to spending a minimum of eight hours a day alone with the bots in his workshop, but now Rhodey was there all the time, demanding his attention and asking about what he was working on. Tony wanted to trust Rhodey,but the fear of revealing his babies was too engrained. He liked the older man, but what if Rhodey decided that it was for the good of the military that the robots be studied, reverse engineered? They were children, helpless, tiny, precious. Tony’s children. 

He wanted to invite Rhodey into the workshop, to introduce him to his bots, but his fear paralysed him. Every time he decided that yes, he could trust Rhodey, the doubt would rise again. He wondered if it was the Warmth that was doing it, but really he knew it wasn’t. He could always feel when the emotions effecting him came from the warmth. This wasn’t that. This was all his own. If anything, the Warmth seemed to like Rhodey and certainly felt encouraging whenever Tony considered telling him. 

Eventually it was the bots that decided him. Too terrified to allow Rhodey into the room he’d been spending less time there himself, and when he walked into workshop one day after Rhodey was out it was to be accosted by three crying Sparklings who threw themselves at his legs, actual tears - made out of their lubrication fluids - seeping down their faces. He sank down and gathered them into his arms, crooning and clucking to them, rocking back and forth, then singing to them softly. 

“They were afraid you were not coming back,” Jarvis’ voice was stiff and angry from across the room. “While with the stockpiled food I can keep us fed, this is the longest you have ever been gone from them without putting them into deep sleep first. They did not like it.” 

“I’m sorry, babies. I’m so sorry. You know you’re the most important things on the planet to me; nothing will ever be more important. I just…I’m afraid of people finding out about you. I want to trust Rhodey, I’m just afraid of what would happen to you if I’m wrong to trust him. I’ll tell him, alright? I’ll tell him. It’s alright, we’re all going to be alright.” He sat with them, whispering reassurances and soft nonsense for a long time before he finally stood. “Come on, let’s play a game before bed, okay?” 

Two hours later, the three Sparklings were settled into their little bed and Tony was left facing a much less forgiving Jarvis. 

“They need you. They rely on you. You can’t leave them alone like that.” 

“I know. I didn’t mean to leave them for so long, it’s just harder with someone else here. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you all to Rhodey, okay, buddy? We’re going to be alright.” Tony reached out and pulled the youngling against his side. In a rare show of vulnerability, Jarvis pressed into him, grabbing two fistfuls of his t-shirt. He might have been mentally older than the Sparklings, but he was still a child, one who was far too serious most of the time. “We’re going to be okay, buddy. Are you ready for bed?” 

After a long moment the youngling nodded, head still buried against Tony’s side. “Okay, buddy. Let’s get you settled.” 

~~~@@@~~~

Rhodey could see how nervous Tony was the next day, and he didn’t know what was up with the kid. Tony was standing in front of the only room (other than the housekeepers) that Rhodey hadn’t been allowed into. 

“What’s in here you can’t EVER tell anyone about, Rhodey. Ever. I need you to promise that you won’t.”   
“Tony, it’s okay. I promise, it’s just between the two of us. It’s okay, kid.” His schooled his expression to complete seriousness, matching Tony’s, to show his support and understanding. 

Tony bit his lip and nodded, then reached up and keyed in a code. The door opened and Tony entered, Rhodey following on his heels. 

Rhodey looked around, not seeing anything that could be making Tony as nervous as he was. It was a very nice workshop and Tony obviously kept it obsessively clean, but he didn’t understand what had his friend so on edge. 

“Come sit down over here, Rhodey,” Tony beckoned his friend over to a thick mattress on the floor in a corner of the room, looking rather out of place compared to the rest of the room. Tony flopped down on it and Rhodey slowly sat beside him. 

“Now, don’t freak out, okay? If you freak out, he’ll freak out, and he’s really hard to calm down.” 

“Tony, what?” 

“Shhhh. Dummy,” Tony’s whole demeanour changed as he called the name softly. “Dummy, out you come, come on buddy. It’s okay. Come meet Rhodey.” 

There was a soft metallic clicking sound from the other side of the room, from behind a petition, then something peeked around it, two tiny glowing eyes surveying them cautiously before the body, a weird metallic skeleton with metallic plates giving it more substance, cautiously made its way around the corner. It looked between Rhodey and Tony, then toddled quickly across the room to Tony and buried itself under his arm, chirping nervously. 

Rhodey stared, mouth dropping open. “Tony, he’s…”   
“He’s real, Rhodey. Come on, buddy, come out and meet Rhodey,” he coaxed Dummy gently out from under his arm and around his body. Rhodey looked the tiny robot over. He was staring at him with his head tucked slightly forward, two fingers in his mouth as he looked up at him. 

“Hi, there,” Rhodey waved a little, smiling at the robot. He was adorable. “His name is Dummy?” 

“Dude, I was seven,” Tony shrugged, embarrassed. 

Rhodey’s mouth dropped open again. “Seven?”   
“When I finished him, yeah,” Tony said softly, rubbing a hand down the tiny robot’s back. “Hey, buddy, how about you go and get your ball? I’m sure Rhodey would love to play with you.” 

Rhodey nodded, grinning at the little robot who glanced back and forth between Tony and Rhodey then gave an excited chirp and took off back across the room to return with a stress ball that was as big as his head, which he threw to Rhodey, then took off after as Rhodey threw it back. 

“Tony, he’s amazing, why…”   
“Because, Rhodey…he’s alive. He’s a person, not just a machine. He’s not just strings of code; he’s a baby who’s learning about the world. I can’t risk anything happening to him, to…any of them.” 

“Any of them?” Rhodey asked, latching onto the important part of the sentence. 

“Butterfingers? You? Jarvis? Come on out, boys. It’s okay. Just ask Dummy - Rhodey’s great.” He uttered a series of clicks and chirps that meant nothing to Rhodey but resulted in Dummy uttering a series of fast, high pitched burbles that sounded an awful lot like laughter. 

From behind the partition, two more tiny heads and one larger, a foot and a half higher up, peered out. 

“That’s it, come on out, boys. It’s fine. Bring your toys back out now, it’s okay. Out you come.” 

The three others came out, two toddling and staggering a lot like Dummy, and the taller walking much more smoothly 

“That’s Butterfingers, that’s You, and this is Jarvis,” Tony pointed to each of the bots in turn. 

“A pleasure to meet you,” Jarvis said, and Rhodey barely contained his surprised flinch. 

“And you as well, Jarvis,” he said quickly. “How do you tell which of the little ones is which?” 

“They’re Sparklings,” Tony told him with a shrug, “and I just…know. It’s obvious to me who is who. You can’t tell?” 

“Tony, I hate to break it to you, but they look really similar and they’re all just grey, how am I meant to tell them apart?” 

“Fair point, fair point. Okay, boys, I think it’s time for a paint job. I’ll get some swatches.” 

Even knowing how fast Tony could and would grab onto an idea and run with it, it still amazed Rhodey to watch his friend as he raced around the workshop, gathering what he needed and setting it out on the floor. “Okay, gather round, boys. We need to talk colours.” 

Dummy reached Tony first, but ignored the strips of card with different colours that Tony had just run off from a printer. Instead, he waved a toy at Tony, chirping very definitely.

“You sure, buddy? It’s your paint, you can have whatever colour you want. If…purple…” it looked like it physically pained Tony to say it, but he continued, “is what you want, purple it will be.” Dummy said something else, and that had Tony shaking his head. 

“I can’t paint those, buddy. I’m sorry. You’re gonna have plain grey back there.” Dummy crossed his arms, and Rhodey couldn’t hold back a laugh. 

“What is it?” 

“He wants me to paint his wings,” Tony gestured to the small nubs that extended above Dummy’s shoulders, and Rhodey moved forward to examine them more closely. 

“Wings?” he asked, even as he reached out and stroked across one of them. Dummy immediately gave a high pitched, giggling chirp and tried to wiggle away. 

“They’re sensor wings; they collect a lot of his information about the environment,” Tony explained. “They’re also incredibly sensitive,” he added as Rhodey brushed over them again, eliciting another squeal. “He’s ticklish. Don’t worry, you aren’t hurting him,” Tony added, reassuringly as Rhodey drew back. “He’s just started to really notice them; he’s finally getting some control over their movements so he’s more interested in them now. Anyway, he was asking if I could paint them, but I can’t. Sorry buddy.” 

Once the other two little bots had chosen their colours, Tony showed Rhodey how he could, actually, mix paint right here. He made a shiny finish enamel in the exact shades of purple, green and blue that the little bots had selected, and then they started talking designs. 

It was about halfway through watching Dummy draw the swirling design he wanted on his leg plates when Butterfingers crawled into Tony’s lap and reached up, latching onto Tony’s sleeve and tugging, uttering pathetic little chirps. 

“Oh, is somebody a hungry little bot?” Tony asked gently, letting Butterfingers guide his hand to his face. “Here you go, buddy. I’ve gotcha.” Rhodey watched, confused, as Tony slipped a finger into the little bot’s mouth and he seemed to nurse on it. 

“Tony, what…” Rhodey was confused. He had to admit that the robots were incredible, but he didn’t quite understand Tony’s need to keep them so completely secret. 

“He’s hungry,” Tony told him. “I’m feeding him.” 

“Feeding him what?” Rhodey demanded, confused. 

“A form of liquid energy that my body secretes,” Tony replied candidly. 

Rhodey blinked, then blinked again, waiting for Tony to laugh and admit he was just letting the bot chew on his finger for kicks, but no such thing happened. 

“Jarvis, are all the bottles empty?” Tony turned to the older bot, who shook his head. 

“No, sir, but Butterfingers refused a bottle this morning. He wished to wait for you, although he did agree that if you did not appear before midday that he would drink one.” 

Tony’s entire being softened. He bent over the little bot, clicking and chirping to him, and in return Butterfingers kicked his little legs and wrapped both arms around Tony’s wrist, holding him close. 

“Bring me the empties, would you, Jarvis? I should be sure to keep you guys stocked up.” 

“Tony, what on earth?” 

“See, this is the harder part. I realise that you could believe I could make these little guys, and I did, but when I said they’re alive, Rhodey, I meant it. The learn; eventually, with a bit of help from yours truly, they’ll grow, although it’s going to take at least another twenty years before even Dummy is ready for a Youngling upgrade. They eat, they sleep, they learn, they play. They’re children, my children.”

“But, Tony, how do you…”

“I don’t really know,” Tony told him; the only outright lie he’d told Rhodey, EVER. The Warmth, though, was something that he just knew he had to keep to himself. “Look, Jarvis is bringing me the empty bottles; you can watch me fill them, okay? And then…there’s something else you can watch; I think it might help you understand.” 

There was a loud beep from the computer, and Tony grinned. “Okay, looks like your paint’s all ready, Dummy! Let’s get that happening, huh?” 

It was three hours later, after giving each of the Sparklings a new paint job - Jarvis had refused for now on the grounds that it was not required for individualisation - that Rhodey got to see Tony fill the bottles. He watched in amazement as Tony put two fingers from each hand in the top of the bottles and pale blue, glowing liquid ran from them down into the containers until they filled and he sealed them with something that looked kind of like a baby bottle top, but clearly made out of a much tougher material. 

“Tony…that’s amazing,” Rhodey said slowly. “And you said there was something else?”

“I’ve been…working on a new addition to the family,” Tony said slowly. “She’s all ready to come online; I finished her code last week.” 

“She?” 

“Seemed like it was about time for a girl when I got the urge this time,” Tony replied with a shrug. 

“The urge?” 

“It’s…kind of like an itch, I guess? I definitely NEED to do it, that’s for sure.” Tony struggled to put how the Warmth made him feel when he needed to build a new Bot, but he just couldn’t do it. “Anyway, she’s ready to come online. Want to watch?” 

“Sure,” Rhodey nodded hard, a feeling of excitement building within him. 

“Gather round, boys,” Tony called to the bots as he very carefully lifted a box from under the bench. “It’s time to meet your baby sister.” 

There was nothing particularly feminine about the little body that lay in the box, but Rhodey realised after only a moment that there was nothing feminine or masculine about a clothed human infant or toddler either. Tony lifted the lifeless body out of the box and the other four bots and Rhodey leaned forward, watching with baited breath as he pressed a hand to her chest. His whole hand glowed for a long moment, and the little body jerked underneath it, the glow rushing through her before retracting back to pool under Tony’s hand, where all the other bots had a little glowing ball. The big difference was that instead of the pale blue glow of the boys, hers was a soft lilac. 

Tony took his hand away and smiled down at the little body. “Hi there,” he whispered, taking the little metal hand between two of his own fingers. 

The little bot chirped, sending a flurry of excitement through her siblings who began chirping and squealing to each other, staring at her. 

“What’s her name, Tony?” Rhodey asked softly, looking down at the tiny body cradled in the younger boy’s arms. He could in no way deny that she was alive now; after watching everything in this room for a day, after seeing what Tony had just done - she was definitely alive. 

“Ummm…I don’t know…” Tony was clearly casting around for something, anything, and Rhodey suddenly had a horrible image of the poor little girl going through life with a truly terrible appellation - something that her brothers were already living with, with the exception of Jarvis. “How about…umm…” He snapped his fingers. “Dorothea, Dotty for short. My grandmother’s name was Dorothea.” 

“It’s a beautiful name, Tony. Hi, Dotty,” he cooed to the baby, who stared up at him, eyes somehow seeming to grow larger in her face. 

“That’s your Uncle Rhodey,” Tony told her suddenly, and Rhodey jerked his eyes to Tony, who grinned at him. 

“Tony,” Rhodey asked softly, staring at his friend. “Are you a mutant?”

Tony shrugged. “I dunno, Rhodey. I’m just me.” 

“Yeah. Okay, Tony. That’s fine. And remember, I promised. You guys are all safe with me.” 

Tony smiled, something in his expression relaxing, a tightness around his eyes releasing in relief. 


	5. College Days - Part 2 - Adventures in Alcohol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony tries drinking for the first time. It...doesn't agree with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoy! Sorry I didn't get up a middle week chapter, it's been a strange week. Thanks for reading, please point out problems if you find them! LTR

From then on, Rhodey was a frequent visitor to the workshop, where he played with the bots constantly. He understood how much Tony worried for them and he shared that worry. 

“Hey, Tony, I was thinking,” he said slowly as he held Dotty’s hands and held her up on her feet as she lifted them and put them down one at a time, staring down at them. “I know how much you worry about these guys. What if you made some kind of camouflage for them?”   
“Camouflage?” Tony frowned, turning towards Rhodey with a frown. “What do you mean?” 

“Well, you could build a…I dunno, I guess we could call it a dumb bot, right? I mean, one without a…”

“A Spark, Rhodey.” Tony was frowning in thought. “Yeah, I guess I could. Why would I?” 

“Build one, and give it a large lower body, something on wheels, maybe. The important part is that you be able to hollow it out, after, or else build replicas that are hollow and have some kind of controls built in. You see where I’m going with this?” 

“They could get inside and…drive them around?” Tony asked, frowning in thought. “You know, that could actually work, Rhodey. I mean, that could really work. I like it. They’d only have to get in them when someone’s around.” Tony grinned. “Let me see what I can come up with.” 

~~~@@@~~~

Rhodey had always known that Tony had a poor relationship with his parents, his dad particularly, but he hadn’t realised how bad it really was until one day in the middle of summer when Tony rushed into his room, staring around wildly. 

“Rhodey, I’m really sorry, but I need you to clear out for the rest of the day, maybe tonight as well. I’m sorry, I know this is short notice, but you’ve gotta go now, they’ll be here in half an hour…” he was babbling, and Rhodey stared at him even as he grabbed his things and stood. 

“Okay, Tony, but what’s up?” he asked, standing and quickly starting to shove some things in his bag. 

“My…Howard’s coming. He can’t know about you, Rhodey. If he does…”

“What would happen, Tony?” 

“Tomorrow, okay, Rhodey? Here’s some cash for a hotel, come home tomorrow and I’ll explain then.” Tony shoved a couple of hundred dollar bills into Rhodey’s hand and all but shoved him out the door. 

Rhodey came back the next day to a very subdued Tony working on a blueprint, oddly, at the kitchen table rather than in his workshop. 

“Tony? What’s up?”

“Howard needs this,” Tony’s voice was flat, and he didn’t look up from the papers in front of him. 

“Tony?” 

“What, Rhodes?” Tony stood up suddenly, glaring at Rhodey, who just gaped for a long moment at the sight of his face. 

“Tony, what happened?” Half of Tony’s face was black, and by the way he held himself, it extended beyond his face down his torso. 

“Nothing. I fell down.” 

“Bullshit,” Rhodey stepped forward and began to carefully check his friend over. 

“Don’t worry about it, Rhodey. Nothing’s broken. In three days there won’t even be any bruising left.” 

“Three days?” Rhodey asked, pulling back to look Tony in the eyes and gauge his seriousness. 

“Yeah. It’s pretty sweet, actually, that part.” 

“Okay. Now, seriously, what happened?” 

“I HATE designing weapons,” Tony snarled, turning to glare at the paper on the table. “I hate designing things that can kill. It makes me sick, Rhodey.” 

“Ooookay,” said Rhodey slowly, trying to see where this was going. 

“As you might imagine, that doesn’t sit so well with Howard. So he works on persuading me. This isn’t so bad, really, but it’s why he can’t know abut you. He likes to use the people I care about - Jarvis, my mother although there’s not much he can do to her, one or two of my tutors who he thought I was closer to than others. He threatens their livelihoods, Rhodey. If he knew about you…he could have you kicked out of the ROTC as easy as breathing, and I could never let that happen. He’d have me churning out a new piece every week with leverage like that.” 

Rhodey was horrified. Not at the idea of what Tony’s father would do to him, but that he would do this to Tony. 

Reading the horror on his friend’s face, Tony began to babble. “It wasn’t always so bad; he wasn’t always like this. It used to be he’d…only when he was drunk. Over the years, he’s changed, gotten…harder. He likes to say that ‘Stark men are made of iron’. Kind of funny when you think about how many little Starks I’ve made of metal, huh?” 

Rhodey managed a chuckle, then returned to the original conversation. “Okay, Tony, I’ll keep away from him, okay? Now, why are you working out here instead of in the workshop?” 

“I can’t do this around them, Rhodey,” he said, eyes cast down. “Even though they wouldn’t see it, it feels like I’m making them dirty. I hate doing this, and I don’t want to be around them when I’m feeling like that.” 

“Okay, yeah, I can understand that. Tony, I understand why you hate doing this; it’s similar to how a lot of people feel about being in the military, really. Tony, you’re a creator. Your very BEING goes into making life; of course you hate making things that cause death. I can’t promise that this will make you feel any better, but it might help if you consider that what those things you design do is protect other people’s sons and daughters. Ultimately, they protect your kids, too. I don’t expect it to make you totally alright with it or anything, but it might help you feel a little bit better, right?”

Tony looked at him, biting his lip, then nodded slightly. “It does help, a little bit. Thanks, Rhodey.” 

“Okay. Now, you leave that shit there for a bit and come spend some time in the workshop,”   
Rhodey said, taking Tony’s arm and pulling him up and towards the locked room. 

~~~@@@~~~

The first time Tony tried drinking he was nearly fifteen. It was over halfway through his second year of college and he’d finally allowed himself to be dragged to a frat party. He couldn’t say he was enjoying the event - he much preferred spending time with his Bots, Rhodey and his Bots, or Rhodey and the other students at the Dojo, in that order. Still, he’d gotten his back up when the girls had laughed at him being called a scared little pussy, and agreed to come. 

He hadn’t told Rhodey, knowing his friend wouldn’t like it, and now he was here and these boys were determined to pour as much alcohol down him as they could. He was feeling absolutely awful within an hour. The Warmth was roiling inside his chest, pulsing in time with his head, which was swimming along with the room. 

“Noooo,” he groaned, pushing the latest shot away. 

“Come on, rich boy. Drink up,” the pushy frat boy shoved the drink back at him. 

“The kid said no. So not only are you serving alcohol to a minor, not only is he very obviously underage but everyone KNOWS who he is and that he’s underage, but you’re forcing him to drink beyond any desire he may have originally had for alcohol. Is that right?” The furious growl had Tony turning his swimming head to find Rhodey, still in BDUs from manoeuvres, looming over the bar. “Just so you know, the cops are gonna be here in about five minutes. Come on, kid,” he grabbed Tony’s arm and pulled it over his shoulders, guiding him out of the frat house and away. They heard the sirens approaching before they were even close to where they could find a cab. Glancing around, Tony saw the perfect hiding place - the supercomputer lab, which he had a key for. 

“In there,” he lurched towards it, almost pulling Rhodey off balance before he saw where they were heading and followed. 

Once they were inside with the door locked behind them, Tony led the way into one of the labs. He shrugged his arm off Rhodey’s shoulders, and that was his undoing. He managed two steps forward, stumbled, tripped and fell with both hands against the massive body of the computer. 

The Warmth surged through him, uncontrollably, and into the computer, which shot sparks everywhere, then with a loud rumble began to move. 

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Tony gasped as he stumbled back, suddenly stone cold sober with the headache from hell pounding in his temples. “Hello?” 

The machine, which now that it stood was twice Rhodey’s height, its head scraping the ceiling, growled, square head swivelling towards the two young men. 

“Hi, buddy. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, Rhodey, what did I DO?” 

“You’re asking me?” Rhodey asked. Before he could say anything else, the transformed computer let loose an enraged bellow and lunged for them. They dove out of the way, swearing, as it smashed into the wall, several small pieces coming off the machine and mixing on the floor with the broken plaster. “Can you UNDO it?” Rhodey demanded, even as he dragged Tony out of the way of another awkwardly executed attack. 

“Ummm, I think so?” Tony replied. “I mean, in theory I should be able to, but…Rhodey, I’d have to KILL him.” 

“He’s not like one of your kids, Tony. He’s…look at him, he’s scared, confused, he doesn’t understand. He’s dangerous, Tony. I’m sorry, but you need to…”

“Offline him,” Tony whispered to himself, even as the two of them dodged another attack. “Okay. I think I know what to do, but I’m gonna have to touch him to do it. Split up and you distract him from over there while I grab him from behind?” 

“Yeah, alright,” Rhodey agreed. “On three. “One, two…”

“THREE!” they shouted together and threw themselves in opposite directions, Rhodey grabbing a bunch of stuff off the floor and throwing it at the giant, while Tony ran around behind it and tried to get close. It took some doing, and a lot of dodging and flailing, but Tony finally managed to lay hands on it and, for want of a better word, yank. 

“Please? He’s wrong and dangerous,” he thought to the Warmth as he pulled at the Spark inside of the giant machine. 

He was terrified for a long moment that it wouldn’t work, but then the Spark energy washed back out of the former super computer and into him. 

Tony screamed as the energy rattled through him. It felt like he was burning from the inside out. He collapsed on the floor, body shaking as though from an electricity induced fit, even as the giant robot shook itself to pieces in the middle of the room. 

“TONY!” Rhodey scrambled through the wreckage to his friend’s side. “Tony, are you alright?” 

Tony managed a weak nod, and Rhodey grunted. “Come on, kid, we gotta get out of here.” 

They staggered back to Tony’s apartment in silence. Tony had tears rolling down his cheeks, he told himself they were from the pain. He kept feeling that moment when the Warmth agreed with him to take back the Spark. There had been a moment where both of them had flashed through the possibilities of who could have been under their hands at that moment - Jarvis, You, Dotty, Butterfingers, Dummy. The horror of the idea had sickened Tony beyond anything he could imagine. His scream had only been partially caused by the pain of the energy reentering him - most of it was from the horror and pain of the idea of hurting any of them. 

“I need to get to the workshop,” he managed to choke out. “I need to see them. I need to see them.” 

“Okay, Tony, okay, just hold on, okay? You’ll be fine. Come on, kid, let’s get you inside,” Rhodey propped Tony up by the door to the flat and unlocked it quickly, then wrapped an arm back around Tony and all but dragged him in. 

As soon as he was inside, Tony bolted towards the workshop, where his shaking hands forced him to reenter his code three times before he gained access. He stumbled towards the partition and fell to his knees as he rounded it, staring down at the five small bodies that lay on the mattress, most clutching a small toy. The small glows in their chests brought a sob to his lips as he sat and stared at them, eyes wide, hands shaking on his thighs as he fought the need to reach out and touch them. 

Rhodey came up behind Tony and sighed. “It’s okay, Tony. They’re all okay, and we’re okay. Everyone’s okay.” 

“I am NEVER drinking again,” Tony groaned, listing sideways against Rhodey. 

“Probably the right call,” Rhodey agreed. He gave a soft snort of laughter, and Tony, with the relief rolling over him like a wave, found himself joining in. 

“Hey, grab me some bottles, would you? I need to bleed off some of this energy. Gwennie isn’t gonna be ready to online for months yet, so for now I’ll have to just increase the stockpile.” 

“Shit, was that Gwen’s spark you put into that thing?” 

“I don’t think so?” Tony shrugged. “It didn’t feel like a proper Spark, Rhodey. I think it was just energy, really. And her name will be Gwennie!” 

“Okay, okay. Let me get you those bottles.” He moved away from Tony, leaving him sitting staring down at the slumbering forms. 

There was a stirring on the bed, and Dottie sat up, her little head swivelling to look at Tony. As soon as she focussed on his face, her arms came up, little hands grabbing at him, asking to be held. Tony shrank back for a single moment, then reached out to her and lifted her carefully out of the bed, trying not to disturb her brothers. 

“Hey there, sweet girl,” he whispered, holding her close to his chest and feeling the comforting, reassuring warmth and pulse of her spark. “Did we wake you up? I’m sorry.” He bounced her gently and she cooed up at him. “Yeah, that’s right, it’s sleepy time. You just go back to sleep, now. Daddy’s fine. I’ll be here when you wake up.” He smoothed a finger over her head plating. “Daddy loves you too, sweet girl. You go back to sleep now.” He waited until her eyes darkened into slumber again, then slipped her back down into the bed. 

He turned to find Rhodey staring at him, mouth slightly open. “Daddy?” 

“Well, what did you think they call me?” he huffed back, embarrassed. He hadn’t realised that he was talking Sparkling Speak until Rhodey spoke up. “They’re babies; I’m their creator. What else do you call the man that gave you life?” 

“It’s just…kind of sweet, Tony, seeing you like that. You’re so good with them.” 

“Well, I’m all they’ve got. If I wasn’t good with them, they’d be in serious trouble,” Tony pointed out acerbically. He took the first of the bottles out of the crate that Rhodey had brought him and started extruding energy liquid into it, sighing with relief as he felt the pressure ease off, even if only be an infinitesimal amount. 

By the time Tony was halfway through the crate he was starting to feel slightly more human. 

“God, that was horrible, Rhodey,” he whispered as he stared down at the bots, who occasionally shifted in their sleep. 

“Let’s not do it again, okay?” Rhodey agreed. 

“Never again,” Tony replied fervently. “No drinking. At all. I felt the effects in terms of…this stuff…from the first drink, so I don’t think any amount is going to be safe.” 

“Okay, good, that’s decided. No drinking for Tony. Excellent. Now you’ve only got one more person to deal with about all of this.” 

“Who’s that?” 

“Sensei.” 

Tony’s eyes widened in horror and he tried to shake his head, tried to come up with an argument for why Rhodey shouldn’t tell the man about the drinking, but he couldn’t. There was a code of conduct at the dojo, and Tony had violated it. Rhodey was more than within his rights to report it to Sensei, but Tony knew he was going to do something worse. He was going to make HIM tell Sensei. There were going to be so many push ups, sit ups, rolls, flips and forward and backward break falls in his future, he could already feel the muscle ache setting in. Then would come the cleaning; running polishing rags from one end of the dojo floor to the other. Rhodey just watched his face and started to laugh. 

~~~@@@~~~

The only really good thing that came out of the whole ‘drinking’ incident was that Tony got to get the university to accept Tony building them a new computer to replace the one that ‘unknown vandals’ had destroyed, as a thesis project bringing together three of his PhDs. No one even glanced at Tony with the idea that he’d been involved - he was quiet, a good kid who worked hard. What he gave them was so far beyond anything that was available anywhere else - it was a quarter the size of the one they had had, but with more than ten times the capacity (a minute proportion of the one he was slowly assembling for his workshop, which when he was done with it would have actual holograms.) The one he built for the university did have a screen that responded to touch, however, an innovation that had everyone exclaiming in astonishment. Needless to say, he received the PhDs (Applied Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering and Computer Sciences, to be precise). He also had quite a few more patents to his name, although it would be a while before he saw any returns on them, as the tech was currently too cost prohibitive to put into commercial production. 

~~~@@@~~~

Summer after his second year of college, Tony developed a sudden fever that scared the shit out of Rhodey. The kid was fine one day - in fact, Rhodey couldn’t remember him ever getting sick, despite his terrible sleep patterns and eating, or lack thereof, habits - and the next he could barely walk, not from vertigo but from the throbbing pain in his joints. 

Rhodey had, at Tony’s insistence, half carried him into the workshop, where Tony spent his time sprawled out on a mattress in the main part of the room, talking to the bots and engaging in very limited play. Tony, once settled, refused to move again, instead guilting Rhodey into bringing him whatever he needed. 

He was also starving. He was drinking several litres of milk a day and eating more than Rhodey sometimes saw him put away in a week, but he wasn’t gaining weight. He refused, point blank, to see a doctor, and since the fever was only 102 degrees Rhodey agreed to it. Rhodey did have to help him stagger to the attached bathroom twice a day, then stagger back to his bed. 

The fever lasted two weeks; two weeks of non-stop near agony for Tony, who ached fiercely all over while his joints were burning with a bright, hot pain. For all he weakly joked about ‘making’ Rhodey do things for him, Rhodey knew Tony was a fiercely independent kid and anything he had been capable of doing for himself he would have. 

Towards the end of the two weeks came the part that had really terrified Rhodey. Tony had barely been sleeping, the pain keeping him awake, but suddenly, between one word and the next, the kid yawned, rubbed his eyes and passed out. He didn’t wake up for three days, and when he did it was to roll off the mattress and bolt straight into the bathroom. 

Rhodey was right behind him, and quickly realised that something big had changed. Literally, big. Tony had always been a small kid - when they’d first met, he’d barely come up to Rhodey’s collarbone, and he hadn’t grown much, if at all, in the time he’d known him. Now, Tony was only a few inches shorter than Rhodey’s 6’1/2” - somewhere around 5’10”, Rhodey thought. No wonder the kid had been in pain; to grow that much in such a short period of time must have been agonising. 

He finally staggered back out into the workshop and stopped, looking around. Rhodey took the time to really take him in. Other than the fact that his clothes were now several inches to small in every vertical direction, the kid looked good, a fact that the bots in general, and Dummy in particular, seemed to agree with. 

Dummy stared up at Tony, blue eyes growing bigger, and then he produced what sounded an awful lot like a wolf-whistle. 

Tony pressed his lips together to suppress a snort. “Yes, you’re very funny, mister,” he told the little bot, swooping him up to mock scowl at him suspended in mid air in front of his face. “No more Bugs Bunny cartoons for you.” He gave the bot a gentle shake to go with the mock-fierce declaration. The long, drawn out chirp almost sounded like a child’s howled ‘no’ and Tony laughed again, drawing the little bot into his chest and tucking him under his chin. 

“Rhodey, did I grow, like, eight inches in three days?” he asked, looking down at himself again. 

“Looks that way, kid. We’re gonna have to take you shopping,” Rhodey looked at where Tony’s arms and legs stuck out of the ends of his clothes. “I think maybe you should put on something of mine to go, though. It will look at least slightly less weird.” At Tony’s nod, Rhodey went into the bedroom that had become his, although he kept anything that he actually unpacked in the apartment in the Sparkling area to hide it from Howard. He pulled some sweats and a t-shirt out of his duffle and returned to Tony, who had set down Dummy and was staring down at himself, turning his limbs one way then another as though trying to get used to them. 

Tony accepted the clothes from Rhodey and went into his own bathroom, leaving the workshop for the first time in days. ‘What on earth?’ he demanded of the Warmth, trying to figure out what was going on. 

‘You were ready for upgrade,’ it was one of the clearest sentences he ever got from it that didn’t involve teaching him something. ‘Not a Youth any more. Full grown now.’

“Full grown? Seriously? This is it?” Tony stared in the mirror and hoped that he would at least be able to fill out, because at the moment it was all long limbs and not much else. 

The only other answer he got was a smug sense of satisfaction, and he shrugged before entering the shower. 

Once clean he stood in front of the mirror and realised that, for the first time EVER, he needed to shave. There were shaving things in the bathroom, it had been stocked since he moved in, so he pulled out a razor and shaving cream and made his first attempt. 

He swore as the razor slipped for the third time, this time slicing a cut down the edge of his jawbone. The blood welled and the foam burned, then it stopped. Just stopped hurting. Tony quickly wiped away the now bloody shaving cream to find the skin completely unblemished. 

“Okay, that’s new,” Tony muttered to himself. 

‘Self repair now functioning at optimal levels. Current physical condition sustainable indefinitely,’ the Warmth declared, a smug tone to its mental voice. 

‘Current condition?’ Tony demanded. 

‘Peak health and fitness. Current physical age is optimal for continued functioning.” 

Tony reeled at the idea that what the Warmth had just said meant what he thought it did. He wasn’t going to age? He looked at himself in the mirror again. His face had shifted in a variety of subtle ways over the last few days, broadening in places, and he realised just how much he looked like his father, even more so now. So he wasn’t going to be stuck looking like a teen forever, but either way, people were eventually going to notice the whole ‘not ageing’ thing. 

He dismissed the thought and returned his attention to the razor. More carefully this time, but also with more confidence as he knew he wouldn’t suffer ill effects from doing it wrong, and he soon had smooth cheeks and chin once more. 

He pulled on his boxers and Rhodey’s sweats and shirt. He had to pull the drawstring tight on the pants and roll up the cuffs in order to walk, and he kind of felt like a kid wearing a parents clothing, but he was dressed. 

He exited the bathroom and returned to Rhodey, standing in front of him. This, right here, was weird. He was used to being a lot, and he meant a LOT, shorter than Rhodey. Now they stood almost eye to eye. He felt wrong in his own skin, off balance and awkward. 

Rhodey just grinned at him and shrugged. “Not the weirdest thing I’ve seen since knowing you, kid,” he told him, and Tony felt something inside of him relax, something he hadn’t even known was tense. 

He grinned broadly. “Well, we do do our best to deliver only the weirdest, Rhodey, you should know this by now. Too bad we didn’t raise the bar today.”

“Has this happened before, Tony? I mean, it’s not like you’d grown much in the time I’ve known you.” 

“Ummm…maybe?” Tony grimaced and shrugged. “It was certainly never this intense or this obvious, but thinking about it, when I was eight, and when I was twelve, there were times when I was achey and starving and then shot up.”

“Do you think it’ll happen again?” Rhodey asked, concerned. “Cause I’ll be here if it does, but I hated watching you like that, kid.”

“I dunno, Rhodey, this shit just happens,” Tony whined, shrugging. “How the fuck am I supposed to know, it’s not like this stuff is normal by anyone’s definition.” 

“Fair point, but, language, Tony. You don’t need demerits at the dojo right now, do you?” 

Tony groaned and dropped his head into his hands. No, he didn’t need any more demerits or he’d be bumped from the next grading due to ‘unacceptable and/or illegal behaviour’. Since Rhodey and Sensei were the ones who took the ‘parental role’ and filled in his assessment paperwork, he was judged at a very high standard, and mostly he did well, but his mouth tended to run away from him. After the drinking incident he was in serous danger of not making the cut, and he really wanted to grade up to his brown belt. 

“Sorry, Rhodey, sorry. I know. I’m trying, I’m just freaking out. My entire body changed more or less overnight and I’m freaking out.” Tony could feel the shakes setting in as the reality of the situation came home to him. 

“Oh, hell, no, I’m sorry. You’re completely entitled to freak out, I shouldn’t be razzing you for it. I guess I’m just so used to you taking everything in your stride; there’s so much about your life that isn’t normal I didn’t think.” Rhodey grabbed Tony around the shoulders and pulled him against his chest, a familiar movement that felt completely different now as Tony’s head hit almost completely above Rhodey’s shoulder instead of below his collarbone, but was still intensely comforting. 

Tony held onto Rhodey and just concentrated on breathing until his heart slowed.

“Okay, kid, you ready to get out of here? Only I really don’t think you want to keep wearing my clothes,” Rhodey chuckled and Tony nodded against his shoulder. “Great. Let’s go.”


	6. College Days - Part 3 - Life Goes On

“She thinks you’re a stuuuuuud,” Rhodey drawled as Tony finished complaining about the latest girl to try and get him into bed. 

“You don’t get it, Rhodey! There’s something WRONG with me!” Tony finally cracked under the pressure of Rhodey’s teasing and lashed out, whirling to face his friend. 

Rhodey immediately sobered and stood from where he’d been leaning to tease Tony about the latest in a long string of propositions from pretty female students. It didn’t seem to bother anyone (other than Rhodey) that Tony was literal jailbait. Since his ‘growth spurt’ three months ago in the summer before their third year at MIT the female population of the university had been flinging themselves at him, as had at least half his class at the dojo, although at least they were mostly around his age so it was slightly less awkward. He’d filled out some since then - a fact that seemed to fill him with a relief that Rhodey didn’t quite understand - and he was a very handsome, if rather short, young man. 

“I…I don’t, I’ve never felt attracted to anyone, Rhodey. I don’t even feel pleasure…that way, not really. I mean, it’s kind of nice, I guess?”

Rhodey stopped and blinked, trying to assimilate that idea. “You mean you don’t…” he made an obscene hand gesture, and Tony shrugged. 

“There’s no urge, Rhodey. At all. I mean, when it happens I guess it feels…nice? Mostly it’s wet and sticky.”    
“Tony, have you considered the purpose of human sexual attraction and the sex drive?” Rhodey asked gently after a few moments. He’d been wondering about this for a while, watching Tony turn down girl after girl (and occasional boy) on campus, but he’d dismissed the idea, sure that Tony was just waiting for the right time, the right person, or both. When Tony just looked at him quizzically, Rhodey shrugged. “Reproduction, Tony. And you’re already hip deep in that without ever having sex, so maybe you’re just wired a little differently.”

Tony stopped and frowned in thought. In truth, the fifteen year old had been worried that he wasn’t feeling the things that everyone said he should be feeling right now. There was no urge to ‘get some’; he didn’t even have to deal with inconveniently timed boners, which he knew from some of the guys at the dojo was a major problem for most kids his age. 

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Tony. You’re just different, and that’s okay. You were born this way; who knows what else is different about you because of your particular mutation. And I don’t care; you’re my brother, no matter what, kiddo.” 

Tony frowned, then nodded. “Okay, okay, I get it, I think. It’s just another part of being me. But what should I do about it, Rhodey? I mean, people are starting to notice, to talk. I turned down three girls at the last party. They already find it weird that I don’t drink, even if I am still underage…”   
Rhodey winced at the memory of Tony trying to drink. “And thank goodness you have had the good sense to never get drunk again after what happened last time. I don’t think the university can afford another one of those computers.” 

“They couldn’t have afforded the one they have now, Rhodey. I footed the bill on that, using money from my patents.” 

“Right, right,” Rhodey agreed. The mention of Tony’s patents had triggered something that had come up again the week before, when Rhodey had had to hide out with the bots while Tony ‘entertained’ his father and someone he later told Tony was Obadiah Stane, his father’s business partner. Tony, speaking of your patents, you’ve got a bunch of them, right? Which means you have money that isn’t tied up with your family?” 

“Yeah, of course, have had since I was six,” Tony replied, shrugging one shoulder. 

“Then…couldn’t you tell them where to stick their weapon making business, if it makes you feel so awful?” Rhodey asked, cautiously. Tony looked at him, biting his lip, then hung his head. 

“I wish it was that simple, Rhodey. Remember how I said Howard can’t find out about you?” Rhodey nodded. “Jarvis has cancer, Rhodey. His treatment is very expensive. Right now, the only way he gets it is if Howard keeps paying for it, and Howard will only keep paying as long as I’m designing weapons for him. It could be worse; he only wants a few designs a year. Jarvis isn’t going to be around much longer; then there’s the funeral costs and his daughter is still in college, Howard will pay for her as long as I keep playing ball. If I try to step in and just take care of them myself…I’m still a minor, Rhodey. I might have money, but he’s my father, and he can have everything I own tied up in a trust until I’m fifty with the kind of lawyers he commands. I can’t do anything.” 

Rhodey sighed. In some ways, it was easy to forget that his best friend was five years younger than him. “Okay, well, this has taken us really deep into territory that is way away from what we were originally discussing,” Rhodey decided to stop the conversation before Tony put himself into one of his spirals of impotence and self disgust. “As far as what you should do about your drinking and sex issues, kid, why do you think you need to do anything? Why can’t you just be you?” 

“They all…expect things, Rhodey,” Tony shrugged a shoulder. “I should be a spoilt rich kid who parties too hard and sleeps around; I should throw my money at all of them to make them like me; I should, I should, I should.” 

“Fuck ‘em,” Rhodey said succinctly. “Building a persona like that would make you MISERABLE, Tony. Even if you found a way to counterfeit drinking, it would make you miserable. Besides, it would take you a great deal of time outside of classes, and what part of your day would that impact on?” Rhodey pointedly glanced around the workshop, taking in the current view, which included two block towers and their tiny architects, Dotty trying (and still failing) to push herself up on her arms to crawl and Jarvis playing an animated game of macadamia nut hockey with Dummy, who was mostly just throwing himself on top of the ‘puck’ when it got too close to his goal, littering the ground with smashed pieces. 

“Point taken,” Tony looked around the workshop, considering, and realised that Rhodey was right. He was happy, right here, right now, with Rhodey and his kids. Why did he think he needed anything else? Why would he want anything else?

“It’s peer pressure, kid, and it’s a normal part of being a teen, even if you aren’t a billionaire,” Rhodey told him dryly. “Don’t worry, I’ll be around to give you a kick in the arse as required.” 

“Thanks, Rhodey,” Tony told him, looking around the room. “Want to help me work on Gwennie? She should be ready to come online in a couple more weeks.” 

“Gwen,” Rhodey muttered under his breath, even as he settled at the bench to watch and hand Tony tools. 

~~~@@@~~~

Tony onlined Gwyneth three days before his sixteenth birthday. He was planning on having a party at a local pizza parlour with the other teens from the dojo, Sensei and Rhodey on the day, and his mother would be in town in a week or so to take him out to dinner. 

Gwen had been a source of much discussion between Rhodey and Tony. Rhodey had thought that Tony should create a second youngling, not another Sparkling, but Tony had been dead set against the idea. 

He’d forbidden the discussion in the workshop, not wanting to bots to hear it, which meant that the only place they could talk was Tony’s bedroom because the mostly absentee housekeeper was currently in the kitchen. This led to their current situation - sprawled out on Tony’s much too large bed, propped up on their elbows as Tony tried to explain it. 

“Don’t get me wrong, here, Rhodey. I love Jarvis and he’s perfect, and I want to believe he’s who he would have grown to be if he’d grown from a Sparkling, but the fact is that there’s no way to be certain of that. When I write that much of the code myself, I feel like I’m somehow stealing things from them, taking away decisions that they would make that would determine who they are. I don’t want to do that to my kids. I needed Jarvis, he’s so good with the others, and at the time I was definitely sure that I wanted a Youngling, but…I’m not sure about doing it again. Jarvis is okay with how long it will be before any of the Sparklings are ready for an upgrade; he loves his siblings and enjoys taking care of them. Still, I’d rather have them start life as Sparklings and go through all the stages of growth than spend years wondering if they’re who they would be if they had, you see?” 

Rhodey rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling, humming as he thought. “Yeah, I get it, Tony. You want to be sure they are as much themselves as possible, which is best achieved by raising them from infancy. I just worry about the amount of work that goes into the raising. The urge to create them isn’t slowing down, is it?” 

“No,” Tony had admitted slowly. “It’s okay, though, Rhodey. I’m fine, I can keep up with them just fine. They mostly take care of themselves; what they really need from me is some personal attention, and they’re all happy enough to get that just by hanging around me in the workshop. Yeah, when they’re really little I need to feed them myself, but once they’re on the bottle either Jarvis can do it or they’re capable of feeding themselves. But I need to know that they’re completely themselves. Besides, I like Sparklings.” 

“Okay, Tony. I get it, Hey, they’re your kids; I just wondered why when you could have them so much more functional you keep choosing the more dependent option.” 

“Maybe that’s a little bit of why, too. I love Jarvis and I know he loves and needs me, but it’s not the same. He can take care of himself so much, as long as there’s food available. The Sparklings, they need me so much more.” He shrugged. “Still, it’s mostly like I said. They learn and grow so much as Sparklings.” 

Tony onlined Gwyneth - Gwen or Gwennie, depending on who you asked - very carefully. He was still afraid that Rhodey was right and he’d somehow put her Spark into the computer before yanking it back out. The Warmth didn’t seem worried and that soothed him, but he was still scared that his mistake was going to screw up his newest little girl. 

He didn’t quite know when it had become so much more ‘him’ doing things than stepping aside and letting the Warmth do them. It had been a gradual process, that was for damn sure. He wasn’t even sure if it was because he was gaining more control or because he and the Warmth were integrating more. Still, he could feel as the Spark slipped down his arm into his hands, and he checked it carefully. It seemed fine, it felt just like all the other bots’ sparks, so he relaxed and allowed it to flow into the little Sparkling body. He had enamelled green Celtic knot work on her limbs, just to give her some individualisation until she could choose her own colours. Dotty had chosen a pattern of climbing rose vines covered in half open buds, enamelled in various shades of red, green and pink, which Tony had enjoyed the challenging intricacy of. 

Maybe it was the extra attention and control Tony gave to implanting the Spark, but Gwennie didn’t jerk the way her siblings had when coming online. Her optics simply blinked on as her Spark coalesced back into her chest, and she stared at the world with enormous, pale green eyes. 

“Hi there, pretty girl,” Tony lifted her gently off the table and snugged her against his chest as she stared up at him with an expression he didn’t think he would ever get enough of, and he knew was on his own face right now - as if staring at the most wonderful, most important thing in the whole universe, the thing that you loved above all others. His bots, all of them, shared that place in his heart, with Rhodey coming in a close second. He, in turn, received the unquestioning love that babies gave their parents before they learned better, learned that they were human and made mistakes and couldn’t be trusted. 

Rhodey had always been amazed by the intricacy of the bots’ heads and faces - their entire bodies were incredible, but the facial structure, the ability to actually form expressions was still a thing of amazement to him. He still couldn’t in anyway deny that that exact expression of loving adoration was what was on the little girl bot’s face. “Come and meet your brothers and sister. They’re all really excited to see you.” He helped her sit up and turned her to sit against his chest, looking out at the small crowd of bots that surrounded them, staring at her with wide eyes. It didn’t seem to matter how many times it happened, the other bots were always equal parts nervous and excited when it came to the addition of a new family member. Sure, the first couple of times it happened, Dummy was mostly just scared, but as he grew more used to it, it became more exciting than terrifying. The other bots, who never knew solitude the way Dummy had, had never found it quite as scary to meet new siblings. 

They all cooed and chirped excitedly to see her. “Everyone, this is Gwyneth, or Gwennie for short.” 

“Gwen!” Rhodey called from the back of the crowd. “He’s got a thing for names that end in ‘eee’, Gwen, but don’t you worry, Uncle James has your back!” 

“Rhodey, stop trying to corrupt my daughter. Her name is Gwennie,” Tony turned up his nose at Rhodey then looked back down at her. “Who’s a good little daddy’s bot? Hey? Is it Gwennie? Is it?”

Gwyneth looked between Tony and Rhodey, then flung out one arm pointing straight at the older man. 

Rhodey almost collapsed backwards, laughing so hard that tears really did start rolling down his cheeks. “I think that Gwen has spoken, Tony.” 

Tony was staring down at the little bot with an expression of shocked betrayal on his face. “Really? Really? That’s how it is, huh? Okay, then, how do you like this?” he reached down and ran two fingers over her wing nubs, surprising a giggle out of her. “How do you like that, huh? Hey?” After a moment he stopped and smiled fondly down at the little bot. “Gwen it is, then. Welcome to the family, sweetheart. We’re very happy to see you.” Gwen smiled up at him, then the smile turned into an enormous yawn. “Yeah, that’s it, you go to sleep. We’ll be here when you wake up.” Tony held her until she dropped off, then took her and placed in one of the ‘crib’ sections for the youngest bots, designed not to keep them contained but to give them something to grab onto when they woke up so they could sit or, if capable, stand, with some hanging mobiles for them to play with. The cribs had been Rhodey’s idea, but the Sparklings certainly seemed to love them, so Tony was just grateful to him. 

He’d had to expand the workshop to keep it safe for the Sparklings around some of his experiments. What this had really meant that for two (absolutely miserable) weeks, Tony had been forced to put all of the bots into deep sleep while he had a wall partially removed to open up an unused room which Tony and Rhodey stripped down and made into a Bot playground. It had a TV and a large selection of Disney movies, some scaled down play equipment for those with the agility (the monkey bars and jungle gym were big favourites with the oldest Sparklings and with Jarvis), bins for all the toys and games (most of which almost never made it home to them, but the bins existed and Tony figured sometimes it was the thought that counted). The old area behind the partition now held the beds and cribs, with the very back given over to bottle storage. At least the stuff didn’t seem to need to be kept cold and seemed to store indefinitely without going bad. 

The two spaces could both be hidden from the main workshop - the bedroom partition by a sliding wall, the playroom by one that folded down from the ceiling. Both when closed were seamless and undetectable unless you know what dimensions the rooms should have had. Tony had had the door that connected the new playroom to the rest of the apartment removed as though it never existed, and that was the end of it. 

Tony looked down at Gwen as she slept in her crib and smiled. 

“Dude, you got TOLD,” Rhodey laughed, slapping a hand down on Tony’s shoulder as he stared down at the tiny girl-bot. Tony just laughed, shaking his head as he turned away. 

“Yeah, yeah I did. I have a feeling she’s gonna be a handful. She definitely knows what she wants, anyway.” 

~~~@@@~~~

Tony’s sixteenth birthday was an incredible experience. Their sensei took their entire class at the dojo to his own house, where his wife had cooked food like she did for their own kids parties - lots of savoury and sweet finger food. Rhodey had let slip to the sensei that Tony hadn’t had much in the way of ‘birthday experience’ growing up, and the man had immediately overruled on the idea of going to the pizza parlour again. 

Tony loved it. It was nothing like the few parties his parents had dragged him out to. Instead, everyone was sitting around, laughing and eating food that actually tasted like people were meant to eat it and enjoy it. There were games, some of which he’d never heard of, and none of which he’d ever played, and everyone had fun helping him learn, like charades, blind man’s bluff and pin the tail on the donkey. 

Tony had almost laughed himself sick. He’d eaten such incredible delicacies as jelly that was set in scraped out orange skins (incredibly delicious) and chocolate eclairs with glaze icing and real whipped cream. Rhodey took what felt like a million photos as Tony just got the opportunity to really enjoy being just a normal kid for quite possibly the first time ever. 

They had even covered their dining table in paper and given out a several packs of markers. Everyone had drawn pictures and written stupid jokes. At the end of the night, Sensei peeled it off the table and given it to Tony to take home. 

The whole group had clubbed together to get Tony his present - a remote control car, something that Rhodey was sure he would have fun with but wouldn’t ever think to get for himself, because toys were not something he bought for himself, they were something if he thought about he got for his bots. 

Tony wasn’t so far removed from society that he didn’t know that most kids his own age would not consider this a worthwhile birthday party, but he didn’t care. He loved it. 

~~~@@@~~~

Rhodey waited at home for Tony to get back from lunch with his mother. Tony hadn’t been nervous about the meeting like he was with his father, more ambivalent than anything else. Rhodey couldn’t understand how two such messed up people had produced a kid like Tony. The only thing he could put it down to was Tony’s ability, his mutation, and the responsibility that came with it. The love the Bots had for him, and the love he had for them, was a stabilising influence. 

When Tony got back, he looked miserable. 

“How’d it go, kid?” 

“Am…am I a good parent, Rhodey?” Tony asked, pulling his tie off and throwing it on the floor, not even caring. 

Rhodey blinked, wondering at that, then shook off his surprise and focused on answering. “You’re an amazing parent, Tony. Your kids are the luckiest little bots ever. Why do you ask?” 

“Just…my mom. She loves me, I know she does, whenever she sees me it’s hugs and interested conversation, but she spends most of her time ignoring and avoiding me and I don’t know why. What did I do? What can make a parent just…give up on their kid? She spends so much of her time fundraising for other kids, but I’m lucky if I see her four times a year.” 

“Oh, Tony…”

“Could I do that to them? Could I start treating them like that?” 

“No, Tony. It’s not in you to do that to them. I don’t know what’s wrong with your mom, but that’s on her, not you. You didn’t do anything to make her this way, I promise. You don’t deserve this, any of this. You’ll never treat your kids that way, and if you do, I promise you faithfully that I will be here to kick your butt.”

Tony grinned at that, and nodded. “Thanks, Rhodey. Hey, wanna bring the truck into the workshop to give the Sparklings a ride? They haven’t seen it yet.” 

“Sure, should be good for a laugh. I can just see Dummy standing in the tray now, speeding around and screaming his head off.” 

“Dummy doesn’t scream,” Tony objected, all offended dignity. “He yells in a very manly manner.” 

Rhodey just snorted and shoved Tony in the shoulder, leading the way to where they’d left the mini monster truck. “I hate to break it to you, Tony, but your little boy screams like a girl. A girly girl.” 

They entered the workshop to the excited squeals and chirps of the bots and Jarvis’ cheerful greeting. 

“Thought you might like to help me play with my new toy,” Tony told them, grinning. “Who wants a ride?”

The Sparklings gathered around the remote control car, which at two feet high was slightly taller than they were. Jarvis came up behind them, head cocked curiously to the side, and suddenly a blue light flashed from his eyes, briefly enveloping the car before withdrawing. 

“Jarvis? Buddy, what was that?” Tony looked between the youngling and the car, confused. 

“I am uncertain, Creator,” Jarvis both looked and sounded highly confused. 

The largest bot’s speech had not relaxed much since he’d first come online - it was a large part of Tony’s argument against creating more Younglings as opposed to Sparklings. He still struggled even with using contractions, and given that the Sparklings, once they were old enough to converse in more than single word chunks of their own particular language did not sound anything like as formal, it was hard to believe it was simply a result of being physically older, although proof of that was still a minimum of twenty years away. He had no problem communicating emotions in tone, but his words were always so formal, even when what he was conveying really wasn’t.

“Something is…happening. A process I haven’t used before is waking up. I feel…strange.” Jarvis took several steps back from the Sparklings even as Tony bolted around the small crowd. Jarvis had stopped moving by the time Tony reached him, and a number of circuits that Tony hadn’t understood during construction were coming online with whirrs and clicks. 

The Warmth pulsed in Tony’s chest, filling him with a feeling of peace and satisfaction, and even as Tony panicked he felt himself forcibly relaxed. The clicks and whirrs that spilled past his lips came not from him but from a the Warmth, a sensation he was no longer accustomed to as now that he had learned and was fully capable in the Sparkling Speech the Warmth did not seem to feel the need to speak to the bots directly. 

Jarvis calmed minutely as the voice washed over him. Tony could get the general gist of it - be calm, it’s alright, you’re dong really well, just let it happen. 

“Father?” Tony’s heart almost stopped as Jarvis looked up at him, voice tiny, eyes still fearful. Tony felt his heart squeeze at the sight. It was the first time Jarvis had called him anything other than creator, and the sound froze him in place for a single critical moment. Then Jarvis’s form began to shift and change, slowly at first then faster. Suddenly, there was an exact replica of the mini-monster truck, but with Jarvis’ plain grey colouring sitting there. 

“Jarvis?” 

“F…Father?” the voice shook a bit, but it was Jarvis’s. Tony blinked, staring down at the car, which lurched a bit on its wheels before rolling forwards, towards him. It kept coming until it was pressed tight against his lower legs. He was making the Sparkling sound equivalent to whimpering, a sound that Tony was glad he hadn’t heard often, as it broke his heart every time he did. 

“Hey, look at you, buddy,” Tony crouched down and rubbed the hood of the car, feeling Jarvis’ Spark throb beneath it. “You look amazing. You’re okay. I’m so proud of you. It’s okay. Do you want to try shifting back, or do you want to just stay like that for now? Whatever you want to do, that’s okay, buddy. Whatever you want.” 

“It’s…alright?” Jarvis sounded so afraid. “I changed…”   
“Yeah, well, not so long ago I did that too, remember? Of course it’s alright; you’re still my Jarvis, buddy. You always will be, and I’ll always love you, no matter what. You’re just fine, you’re perfect just the way you are.” Tony was always careful to tell all of the bots that, but he felt like he said it more often to Jarvis, because Jarvis was different. Jarvis was very conscious of the fact that he was different from his brothers and sisters, and Tony hated that he had done that to his boy. It hadn’t been his decision back then, not really, it was the kind of thing the Warmth had just done, but Tony knew that the Warmth had done it so that Tony would have additional assistance in taking care of the Sparklings. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t know that this could happen, buddy, that I didn’t get to warn you about it in advance. Parents are meant to get to do that. No matter what, you’re my boy and I love you. Forever and always, to the moon and back. Remember?” 

The whimper had finally died away, and Jarvis hummed in acknowledgement of Tony’s words. “Forever and always?”

“Forever and always,” Tony replied. There was a loud whirring and clicking and Jarvis unfolded back into his ‘bot form. “There you go. I’m so proud of you; how are you feeling?” 

“I find myself exceeding hungry,” the words, delivered with the all of the whine of a hungry child, were exactly the odd kind of juxtaposition that made Tony worry about Jarvis. 

“You want a bottle?” Tony offered. Jarvis shook his head, burying himself deeper against Tony’s side. “No? Okay, buddy, I got ya. Come here.” He gently tugged the bot onto his lap and brought a hand up to his mouth. Jarvis latched on and suckled in a way that he almost never did, and Tony let him, humming Kansas’ ‘Wayward Son’ as he swayed gently in place. 

Rhodey finally unfroze from where he had watched the whole thing from just inside the doorway and knelt down, drawing the Sparklings against him. They went like a little flock of ducklings, clustering around his sides, staring at Jarvis and Tony, tiny curious chirps and little murmurs flying back and forth, but mostly they kept quiet, leaning into Rhodey. The two girls climbed up onto his lap and sat against his chest, Gwen taking a fistful of Rhodey’s shirt, Dotty sucking on a finger. 

Rhodey wished he had a video camera so that the next time Tony asked him questions about what kind of parent he was he could show him this moment, with Tony rocking Jarvis and singing to him, two fingers in the Youngling’s mouth as he fed.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY, guys. Where I live (in the middle of absolutely no where - the nearest town is 300km away) there is no phone reception, so no mobile internet, and the internet we have frequently just isn't. It's 18GB across 15 people, some of whom are exceptionally selfish about how they use it. Then, I've been sick, travelling and just in general...I'm sorry that this took so long! It especially sucks because I wasn't kidding about this already being mostly written. The first 'book' is actually done. So, anyway, enough of that. Please enjoy!

It was less than a week later that the rest of the fallout from Jarvis’ shape shifting came home to roost. It came in the form of Butterfingers glaring at Jarvis with crossed arms, stomping feet and furiously pouting lip. 

Tony was trying not to laugh at the incredible cuteness, and wasn’t entirely sure why he shouldn't but it didn't seem like a good idea. 

Jarvis had been practicing shifting between car and bot form, getting smoother at it each iteration, and apparently as he did it over and over it became less draining, as he had barely touched the second bottle that Dummy had toddled back and fetched for him when he finished his first. 

Rhodey was trying to figure out what it was that had Butterfingers so extremely worked up. He was normally a very easy going little bot, not given to temper tantrums. 

“Care to share with those of us who aren’t blessed with the gift of tongues?” he finally asked Tony, who took a deep breath, obviously fighting giggles. 

“He wants to shift,” he explained, then scooped Butterfingers up and stood him on the work bench. “Don’t talk to your brother like that, ‘Fingers, it’s not nice. This is your warning. Any more like that, to anyone, and you’re going to the naughty step.” The naughty step had been Rhodey’s introduction to the workshop, when he saw how Tony struggled with an appropriate method of disciplining his (generally actually very well behaved for toddlers) bots. "It isn’t Jarvis’ fault that you can't shift; you’re just too young. Do not give your brother a hard time about it.” 

Butterfingers scowled, looking down at his feet, and muttered some very uncomplimentary sounding chirps at them. 

“Okay, mister, that’s it. Down you go.” Tony picked up the little bot and set him down on the step in the corner of the room and knelt in front of him, looking him seriously in the eye. “I put you down here because I told you not to talk to people like that and you did anyway, Butterfingers. You can sit there and think about that for eight minutes." The bots seemed to have the same concept of time as the toddlers they resembled in both size and behaviour. By the end of his time confined to the step, Butterfingers was a blubbering mess who apologised and cuddled with both Tony and Jarvis. 

~~~@@@~~~

Summer rolled around again, as it was want to do. Tony had finally, after working a lot longer and harder than he’d initially thought he’d have to, finished the ‘dumb bot’, replicas of which would be serve as camouflage for the Sparklings if he ever had to let others into his workshop. 

It was much harder than he’d initially supposed. The robot coding he was used to all depended on the presence of a Spark to function; without it there was no life there. Now he had to build one without that, to program it to be able to learn and work. 

He’d worked on it between other projects, as there wasn’t any real rush for it, which was the other reason for how long it took him to finish. Now, he watched with satisfaction as it rolled across the room, fulfilling the task it had been set. This was the third task the professors had requested of it, and they were all in awe of its ability to simply take audible instruction, no key strokes required. 

“He can be a bit….quirky, though,” Tony warned as the bot picked up the fire extinguisher. “He can identify when things are on fire, but I think he just…likes the extinguisher, if I’m honest.” The warning came just in time, as the robot unleashed a stream of extinguisher foam on the professor. “Sorry about that. I’ve tried to teach him NOT to do it, but…like I said. Since the first time I taught him how, he REALLY likes doing it again.” 

The professor wiped his face off and chuckled softly. “So, maybe fire safety shouldn’t be on his list of skills?” 

“Oh, no, when something is ACTUALLY on fire, he can and will put it out. He just enjoys playing with the damn thing the rest of the time. I did try to tell you when you told him to go pick it up. If he’s holding it and there’s nothing he’s MEANT to use it on, he’s willing to come up with things on his own, is all. Like I said, quirky. Not quite sure where that came from in the code.” 

~~~@@@~~~

In the end, the professors decided that Tony had, indeed, earned his next two PhDs (Advanced Robotics and Advanced Computer Coding and Logistics- they weren’t willing to sign off on one called Artificial Intelligence). Tony, while he was kind of fond of the dumb bot, couldn’t trust it around the Sparklings, and honestly, he wasn’t that attached to it anyway, so he gifted it to the university, who put it to work in the laboratories as an assistant, which was its programmed purpose. 

At the insistence of the university and his father Tony had to do another magazine spread, showing off the AI in all of its glory. 

Tony returned to his workshop and began the process of creating shells that resembled the dumb bot, but in which the bases, instead of housing the ‘brains’ were hollow and had a compartment with a series of controls and a viewing screen that allowed the Sparkling inside to control what the bot did. It would take some serious training to teach even the oldest Sparklings to use them, but Tony still liked the idea of keeping them safe if someone else had to be around. 

By the end of the summer, in between day trips with Rhodey to the beach and theme parks, four separate ‘commissions’ for Howard and many, many hours spent with the bots, he had three completed shells. Dummy was extremely excited to learn how to drive one, although the other Sparklings were just nervous of them, Butterfingers and You slightly less so than the others. They were the largest things they had ever encountered, much bigger than the truck, and they moved around the Workshop in sometimes unpredictable ways. When it was ‘driving lesson’ time, all the other ‘bots were shut in the playroom for safety’s sake. 

It took the first three months of the new college year before Dummy was proficient with driving the shell and performing limited tasks from within it. Once he was, he convinced Butterfingers and You to try it so they could have races to see who completed tasks the fastest. 

It was this that led to where they were now, with Tony’s lower body pinned under the flipped and very heavy metal shell and Rhodey freaking out beside him. Tony was unable to hold back the whimper of pain as the shell moved slightly on his very definitely broken leg. Dummy wailed from beside his head and he quickly concentrated back on trying to comfort the little bot. 

“It’s okay, buddy, it wasn’t your fault. I’m okay, I’ll be fine. Look, the boys are going to lift it up right now and I’ll be fine, okay? Here we go,” Rhodey gripped under Tony’s arms and watched as the other two shells worked in tandem to lift the long arm of the bot up high enough that Rhodey could slide him out. 

As soon as he had an inch of clearance, Rhodey slid Tony across the concrete floor. Once he was clear, Butterfingers and You lowered the currently lifeless shell back to the floor then immediately exited their own and converged on Tony, who was whimpering and clutching his upper leg, unable to control himself enough to offer comfort any more. 

“God, Tony,” Rhodey stared down at the very clearly broken leg. “We need to call an ambulance,” he told the younger man, who immediately shook his head. 

“Give it…a minute.” Tony’s head flew back and would have impacted the floor if Rhodey hadn’t caught it, swearing violently. At the same time, Tony’s leg suddenly snapped straight, pulling an agonised scream from him and sending Dummy running for the other side of the workshop, tears streaming from his bright blue eyes. 

Moments later Tony was pushing himself upright, panting and covered in sweat but apparently alright. 

“Tony, what the hell?” demanded Rhodey, staring at him. How did you know…what the hell?” 

“I…After I was sick, Rhodey, I cut myself trying to shave for the first time, and it healed in seconds. I heal in SECONDS, Rhodey.” 

“Okay, okay,” Rhodey sat back slightly, nodding as he considered. “You already healed faster before then, right? So you’ve…just matured, that’s all. Why didn’t you tell me?” 

Tony barked a harsh laugh. “One of these days, Rhodey, I’m gonna hit your tolerance for weird.” 

“Never, kid. Never. I’m with you no matter what. Never be afraid to tell me these things, okay? How can I help you deal if you don’t talk to me?” Tony shrugged, but eventually nodded. 

“So, you’re alright?” Rhodey asked, looking him up and down. 

“I could use about five litres of milk, or equivalent, but other than that I’m fine. Excuse me, please.” Tony knelt up and crawled across the floor to where Dummy was curled up into a tight, compact ball, shaking and weeping violently. He swept him up in his arms and cuddled him against his chest, murmuring reassurances and rocking from side to side. 

“It wasn’t your fault, Dummy. Look, Daddy’s fine, buddy, we’re okay, and I’ll improve the design to prevent tipping, okay? I’m sorry, buddy. Daddy’s okay, just calm down, Dummy, Daddy loves you…” Rhodey left Tony to comforting the bot and exited the Workshop to find as much dairy as he could. He put in an order for pizza, sure that Tony needed plain calories as well as the dairy, getting cheese stuffed crust to combine both objectives. 

He returned to find Tony nursing Dummy, who clung to him his shirt with both fists, the occasional tear still rolling down his face. 

“I’ve ordered pizza,” he told him as he passed over the gallon jug of milk. “I thought we could all have a movie night in the playroom.” 

“Well I don’t think I’m getting let go anytime soon, but that sounds good to me,” Tony grinned. “Thanks, Rhodey. That sounds perfect.” 

~~~@@@~~~

It was over a month before Dummy could be persuaded to enter his shell again. He treated it with suspicion and a fear bordering on terror and Tony didn't push him on it. In fact, it was Rhodey who persuaded him to try it out again. It had taken a lot of patience and just being near it before Dummy was willing to touch the thing, and Rhodey demonstrated the new features Tony had given all of them to prevent future tipping accidents. 

Rhodey was watching (and working on his own thesis project on another bench) as Tony started work on the latest Sparkling, but something was different this time. 

“Tony, what…” 

Tony grinned and shrugged. “Seems that we’re getting twins this year, Rhodey.” 

“Twins?” Rhodey’s eyes rose. “There’s something else different though, too, isn’t there? Those don’t look like sensor wings.” 

“You’re getting good that this, Rhodey. You’re right, these guys are gonna be a little bit different. They’ll be flyers, when they’re older.”   
“Flyers?” 

“Well, like you saw with Jarvis, these guys are all capable of shifting into ground vehicles, or they will be one day. From what I could tell, looking at Jarvis’ code after he transformed for the first time, they will be able to assimilate any ground vehicle shape they want, provided they have enough metal in their systems to support it. Something that the Spark does to them changes the metal they’re made of, makes it capable of reshaping to form the likeness of whatever shape they’ve scanned. These guys will be capable of shifting into flying vehicles. They’ll also be capable of flight in their normal forms.” 

“Okay, I get why having them as twins will be a good idea; they’ll never be completely alone without someone else like them, will they?” 

“No, never. Not that being different is likely to make any difference to the rest of the bots, but…I don’t ever want any of them to feel alone.” Rhodey could hear the pain in Tony’s voice and just nodded in agreement. 

Tony didn’t reveal to Rhodey that the need for them to be twins was also born simply from the fact that the Spark he could currently feel coalescing in his chest was not one, but two. While he desperately wanted to trust his friend, he still kept that one secret, the secret of the Warmth, to himself, holding it close. He wasn’t sure if the bots understood about the Warmth, or if they just considered it as part of who he was as their creator, their Daddy. He quickly decided that it didn’t matter. 

“Boys or girls?” Rhodey asked, looking down at the partially assembled bodies. 

“One of each,” Tony replied distractedly as he grinned down towards his feet. Rhodey glanced down and had to laugh. Dotty and Gwen were each twined around one of Tony’s ankles and appeared to be having a competition to see who could pull his foot off the bar of the stool first. 

Rhodey grabbed the polaroid camera that they kept in the workshop for just this type of thing and snapped a picture of them, earning him a grateful grin from Tony. 

Tony allowed the girls to continue their game as he carefully adjusted a screw in one of the tiny feet he was assembling. 

“So, have you thought about Sensei’s question yet?” Rhodey asked as he carefully placed another line on the blueprint he was sketching. 

“Actually, yes, and I think I have an answer. I know he said that I can choose any skill and it doesn’t have be ‘useful’, but I think this is a good idea. I think I’ll take ballroom dancing lessons. If I’m going to have to spend at least SOME time being a ‘Stark’” (he paused to give the word actual air quotes) “I’ll need to be able to dance. I get why we have to take a second skill before grading up to black belt, it makes sense, to prove we are interested and committed to developing ourselves in all areas of our lives. So, yeah. Ballroom dancing. Which means I’ll need a partner for my exhibition piece when I grade. Any thoughts on who? I’d ask you, but considering what people will probably assume about a dance partner that would do less than wonderful things for your career aspirations.” 

“How about Elektra? We can sit her down and talk to her first, let her know that there’s nothing of…that sort on the table? She doesn’t seem to really be that interested in attachments anyway. If she doesn’t already know how to dance, she’ll need to learn for the same reasons you do, and if she does, well…a knowledgable partner is always valuable, wouldn’t you say?” 

Tony was just nodding in agreement when, with a sudden yell, he slid from his seat and disappeared behind the table. Rhodey, inured to such occurrences by now, grabbed the camera and rounded the bench to find Dotty and Gwen standing on Tony’s chest, arms raised in victory. Tony was laughing, and Rhodey snapped the camera, capturing the three of them together, Tony’s eyes bright and smile wide as he looked up at the two girls. 

~~~@@@~~~

For his seventeenth birthday, Tony had the gang from the dojo around to his own apartment and served pizza and soft drink. They played board games and watched movies until long into the night. It was a fun time and Tony enjoyed hanging out with the other kids, even if he found them somewhat hard to understand. 

They were just so…different. They seemed so free from almost any kind of restraint, any kind of responsibility. He didn’t regret his responsibilities in any way; he loved his kids and always would, but he wondered what it was like to be able to be that free. Not that many of the kids who stayed long at the dojo were particularly reckless or anything - the ones who didn’t have a moderate sense of personal responsibility were weeded out fairly fast. They couldn’t cope with a program that insisted on things like doing what your parents said, keeping your room clean and handing in your homework on time. 

Still, they were all so…Tony guessed the only word for it was ‘young’. He didn’t think he’d been quite that young since he was seven and Dummy had blinked up at him for the first time, a tiny thing so utterly dependent upon Tony for his needs. Sure, he’d been a kid - he still was a kid - he still enjoyed doing ‘kid things’, but they were just so different from him. 

Still, he enjoyed hanging out with them, even if the only other human he really felt like he understood was Rhodey, but maybe that was just because Rhodey really seemed to understand him and knew (almost) all of his secrets. 

~~~@@@~~~

Over six months later, Tony’s ballroom dancing exhibition before his black belt grading went beautifully. Elektra had leapt at the chance, choosing to use it as her own ‘unrelated skill development’ show piece and the two of them had put their all into it. As expected, most members of the dojo watched and waited with baited breath for ‘the romance of the century’ to bloom between the two young heirs, but nothing other than a deeper friendship ever came of it, on either side. Tony was grateful for it, as he had been nervous that the slightly younger teen wouldn’t be able to sustain her conviction that it wouldn’t be a problem not to actually ‘become emotionally attached beyond the bounds of friendship’ (her words). 

It was two days after his grading, and he was bruised from head to toe from all of the take downs the black belts at the dojo had handed out. He was in the workshop, starting to put the finishing touches on his personal computer - it was mostly ready now, and with his AI building experience he had managed to get it to take verbal commands, such as setting up folders, moving files around and so on. He planned (he had been planning his ‘ultimate workroom’ for a while now) for it to one day completely automate entire sections of the creative process - not for the bots, of course, they would always be made by hand. He wanted the computer to be able to run a series of fabrication bots that would produce the prototypes of his creations. 

Rhodey was away for a few days - he had ROTC commitments, and Tony was alone with the bots when his doorbell rang. 

It took him a long moment to realise what it was - he hadn’t heard it in years, Rhodey had his own key and he always knew in advance when his father was coming and was waiting by the door. Then he scrambled the bots into their places, ‘shut down’ their parts of the workshop and exited carefully closing the door behind him. 

“Sorry, sorry, coming!” he called as the bell rang again. He looked through the peephole and froze for a long moment as he saw two uniformed cops standing side by side with serious expressions. 

He opened the door slowly, nervous and uncertain what this could possibly be about. 

“Can I help you, officers?” he asked, looking between them. 

“Tony Stark?” one of them asked, and he nodded. “Can we come in, son?” 

“Sure,” Tony replied, shrugging to hide his discomfort and stepped aside to allow the two to enter. 

The two removed their uniform hats as they entered and Tony led the way to the seldom-used lounge area and invited them to sit. 

“Is there anyone else here?” 

“No, the housekeeper has gone home for the day,” Tony replied with a shrug. “Just me.” 

“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, son…” Tony felt nerves gripping his stomach as he wondered what kind of bad news it was. “Your parents were in a car accident about an hour ago. They were both killed on impact. I’m terribly sorry…” the policeman’s voice faded out as Tony tried to understand his words. His parents…Howard and his mom…were gone? Tony sank back against the couch cushions, trying to figure out what the hell he was feeling. 

“Mr. Stark? Tony? Is there someone we can call to be with you?” One of the officers had leaned forward and placed a hand on Tony’s knee, trying to comfort him. 

“Ummm….my friend is off on ROTC manoeuvres…My sensei, maybe?” 

“Okay, Tony, what’s his number? I’ll call him and see if he can come be with you for a bit…”

“No, no, he’s got classes, he’s busy, he doesn’t need to be worrying about me,” Tony tried to object, but the cop insisted. 

“We can’t leave you alone right now, Tony. We’re not allowed to.” 

“But I live alone!” Tony objected. “Well, sort of. Mostly. My friend Rhodey stays here almost every night, but he has a dorm at MIT.”

“Be that as it may,” the two cops exchanged concerned glances at Tony’s objections, “we really do need to have an adult here before we leave.” 

Tony sighed in frustration and gave them the number, then sat on the couch, head in his hands as he tried to figure out what exactly he was feeling. The Warmth was oddly quiescent, just pulsing gently, warmly, offering subtle comfort. Tony couldn’t decide how he felt about his parents. His mother he felt a certain amount of grief for, but Howard, he just didn’t know what he was feeling. 

He remembered good times with his dad, but they seemed so long ago now. Even before he had moved out to go to college his time with his father had mostly been spent being coerced into weapons designing. They’d had their moments, but the more time that passed, the more missions to the Arctic circle that his father came up empty on, the fewer and further between they became until they just stopped. 

He didn’t realise that the cops had gotten a hold of Sensei until the man himself - all six foot four inches of blond giant that he was - dropped down on the couch beside him, an arm going around his shoulders. Sensei had some idea of the turmoil that Tony was experiencing because he knew at least a few details of how neglectful his parents were. He knew that Rhodey was really the closest thing Tony had to a guardian, despite the fact that there was only five years separating the two boys. It was why he allowed Rhodey to sign off on Tony’s ‘personal development’ forms for his gradings. 

He gave Tony a squeeze. “I’ll be back in just a minute. We’ll get you some food,” he told him softly, then stood to show the police out. Tony found himself shivering slightly as he sat on the couch. Sensei came back a few minutes later with a tray holding a tea pot and two handless cups. He poured carefully and, despite knowing that Tony took his tea plain he gave him a large spoonful of sugar and stirred it thoroughly, “Drink that,” he ordered, and Tony, so used to obeying that voice, did, not even choking slightly on the over sweet taste. 

Sensei then pressed a large piece of cheese on toast on him with an order to eat and fixed him another cup of tea before walking away. He re-emerged from the depths of the apartment with a blanket that he wrapped around Tony’s shoulders. 

“Tony, I’m going to call James, let him know what’s going on,” Sensei told him, walking over to the phone and starting to punch in a number. 

“No, don’t!” Tony straightened quickly. “He’ll come back, and he’s been talking about these manoeuvres for over a month, they’re important to him.”

“You need someone, Tony. If you won’t let me call James, I think you should come home with me.” 

Tony’s mind went blank for a moment, then he was on his feet, protesting. “No, I can’t, I can’t leave here, I have things I need to do! I need access to the workroom, I’ve got three PhD proof of concept projects on the go as well as my theses, and the work for my MBA…”

“Tony, surely you’re going to take some time off…” pointed out Sensei, frowning slight. “Aren’t you?” 

Tony looked away, frowning in thought. He knew that it would be expected, but he felt like if he did and was left with nothing to do nothing good could possibly come of it. 

“I don’t think so,” he said softly. “I mean, I’ll take the time necessary for the funeral, but I worked so hard to convince them to let me into the MBA course while completing my last PhD’s…”

“I have no idea how you get as much done as you do,” Sensei shook his head, an expression of wonder on his face. 

Tony shrugged and looked away, not about to admit that he only slept about one night a week and that for about five hours. It wasn’t that he tried to sleep and couldn’t, it was simply that that was the amount of sleep he seemed to need. It gave him the time to get the things he needed to done and spend plenty of time playing with his bots and working on his pet projects, so he didn’t worry about it. 

He really couldn’t just up and leave - the bots needed him here; he knew if he went to Sensei’s there was no way of being sure when he would get back; Sensei would ‘take care’ of him in ways that the man thought he needed and Tony thought he didn’t. 

“Think about how James will feel if you don’t let me call him, Anthony,” Sensei’s voice was suddenly deadly serious, a quick turn around from his momentary light hearted wonder. 

After a long moment, Tony nodded. If he didn’t call Rhodey he would be devastated, and Tony knew it. 

“He left a number by the phone for the coordinator at the Air Base,” he finally said, pointing at the pad. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and realised it must have come from Rhodey’s bed rather than his - it smelled like his friend. 

He could hear Sensei’s voice as he talked on the phone, but couldn’t bring himself to concentrate hard enough to actually hear the words. He wanted to go into the workshop, to cuddle his bots and maybe watch a movie together, or watch Jarvis race in his car form against Dummy or one of the others radio controlling the remote control car. 

He was brought out of his head with a jerk when Sensei settled back down onto the couch next to him. 

“He’s on his way back,” he told him. “When I explained the situation the base agreed to provide transportation. He should get here in a few hours.”

“I’ll be okay until then,” Tony tried to insist, but Sensei just chuckled. 

“Nice try, kid. How about this - there’s a M*A*S*H marathon on tonight; my wife’s watching it with the kids. Want to check it out?” 

“M*A*S*H?” asked Tony. “I’ve never actually watched it,” he admitted. Most of what he watched was aimed at younger children, because that was what the Sparklings enjoyed the most. It was the level of humour they could grasp. 

“Then you’re in for a treat, kid. How’s that toasted cheese treating you?” 

Tony glanced down at the plate in his lap and realised that he’d barely taken a mouthful of the now rather congealed food. 

“Oh…” 

“How about we get Chinese, instead?” Sensei took the plate and pushed Tony’s tea back at him. “Drink your tea, though. It’s good for the shock.” 

“Shock?” 

“Trust me, kiddo, you’re in shock,” was all Sensei said as he crossed back to the phone and placed a quick order with a local Chinese place for delivery to Tony’s apartment. 

He sat down and tuned Tony’s TV to the right cable channel for the M*A*S*H marathon, and used the last ten minutes of the current episode to give Tony a bit of a run down of the characters and the history up to this point. Of course Tony knew the history of the Korean war, although probably not in the same context as most people did; he had studied military history to learn how weapons were used and what could make them better, after all. 

Tony found himself curled against Sensei’s side with the man’s arm around his blanket wrapped shoulders in a position that it suddenly struck him he had never experienced with either of his parents. The thought did not make him cry, but did bring an odd sense of reality to the heavy feeling in his gut, as though a door was shutting on things, sealing away any possibility of the things he’d never had. He ate the Chinese food that Sensei pushed into his hands and actually managed to enjoy and laugh at some of the M*A*S*H episodes. 

He heard the key in the door and heavy booted footsteps approaching, then Rhodey was in the doorway, all six foot one inch of him decked out in his battle dress uniform, splattered in mud with an expression of concern and compassion on his face. 

“Sensei,” he nodded respectfully to the older man, then knelt in front of Tony. “Hey Tony, how are you holding up?” 

Tony shrugged under the combined weight of the blanket and Sensei’s arm. “I really don’t know what I even should be feeling right now,” he finally admitted aloud. “I mean, I’ve barely seen either of them more than four to five times a year for the last four years, and with Howard at least those meetings can’t exactly be called pleasant. I just…don’t know.” 

“Okay, Tony,” Rhodey nodded, a gentle smile on his lips. “That’s okay. Trust me, no one really knows what to feel with this, and you’ve got more excuse for that than most people. Look, give me ten minutes to clean up so I won’t get mud all over everything?” 

“Go,” Sensei ordered. “We’ll be here.” Rhodey quickly rose, pressing a hand to Tony’s shoulder before exiting the room, heading for his own bedroom and ensuite bath. 

“You have a good brother,” Sensei commented softly to Tony, who nodded. 

“I know.” 

Rhodey, for all of his ten minute predictions was back in less than five, dressed in sweats and a t-shirt, still scrubbing his short hair dry with a towel. 

“Thank you for staying with Tony, sir,” he smiled at Sensei. “And thank you for calling me.” 

“It was my pleasure,” Sensei squeezed Tony’s shoulders gently. “Will you be alright with James now, Tony?” 

“Yes, thank you, Sensei,” Tony replied, flushing slightly in embarrassment but he couldn’t deny that he was grateful for having had the company. 

“I’ll take my leave then. Let me know when the funeral is, please.” 

Rhodey simply nodded and quickly showed Sensei to the door, locking it behind him and returning to flop down on the couch beside Tony. 

“What happened, Tony?” he asked, gently. 

“I was working,” Tony said slowly, “assembling the holographic relays. The doorbell rang…”

“And you recognised it?” Rhodey teased and Tony stuck out his tongue. “Brat.” 

“It was the cops,” Tony added. “A car accident, they both died on impact. I don’t know anything more than that right now.” 

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Rhodey told him, voice sincere, and Tony shrugged. 

“It’s like I said, Rhodey, I don’t know what to feel about this, I really don’t. It’s just…” he couldn’t even put words to it, and Rhodey nodded. 

“Want to go hang out with the kids?” he asked, and Tony sighed with relief. 

“Hell, yes.” Tony pushed himself upright and led the way back to the workshop, where he entered the security sequence that opened the internal doors as well as the one into the hall, and Rhodey and Tony entered the lab even as the bots flooded into the main lab, chirping inquisitively as they looked between Tony and Rhodey, trying to understand the reason for their sudden confinement. 

“Father? Are you well?” Jarvis stepped around several of his siblings to approach Tony, blue eyes narrowing as he took in his pale features. “You do not appear healthy, and Uncle James was not meant to return for four more days, so I can only conclude that something untoward has occurred. What is it?” 

Tony sank down and gathered the body of his 'oldest' child close, something inside him relaxing with relief. “Oh buddy,” he whispered, running a hand over his head. “Umm…” he tried to think how to put it in terms they would understand. They had only as much concept of death as any other small child, and they didn’t really have any concept of who Howard and Maria were. 

Rhodey came to his rescue, sinking down beside them both and stretching his legs out in front of him, immediately attracting several of the Sparklings to clime up and balance on top of them. 

“Daddy’s parents - his father and mother - have gone away,” Rhodey said carefully. “And they aren’t coming back. It makes Daddy a bit sad and confused,” Rhodey told them. 

All the bots froze in place for a long moment, then they were diving for Tony, chirping in distress, grabbing onto whatever part of him was closest. 

“No, no, it’s alright, Daddy’s not going anywhere, I’m not going to leave you, you’re okay,” Tony was immediately focused on soothing the bots. “Daddy isn’t leaving you, darlings. I’m right here.” It took about ten more minutes for Tony to soothe them enough to stop audibly broadcasting their distress, and when Tony stood, somehow holding all five Sparklings with Jarvis still holding onto him and led the way into the playroom. He arranged them all on the couch with himself and Rhodey in the middle and cued up whatever movie was in the VCR. 

“Sorry about that,” Rhodey muttered. “I didn’t realise they would…”

“No, it’s okay. They just make connections like that much faster than human kids, I think. If my parents are gone, then I could go to, and that’s a terrifying concept to them. Not that they have anything to worry about on that score, not anymore.” 

“No, I guess not,” Rhodey agreed, glancing down at where Tony’s leg had, not so very long ago, been so very badly broken.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm going to stop promising ANY KIND OF UPDATING SCHEDULE, because clearly I can't actually live up to it. 
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: MENTION OF ATTEMPTED (OR PLOTTED) NON-CON IN THIS CHAPTER. IT'S QUICK, BUT IT'S THERE. BE WARNED.

It was midday the next day when the doorbell rang again. By now, the leading story on the news channels was ‘Howard Stark kills wife and self in drunken car wreck’. Tony answered the door to find a rather pale looking Obadiah Stane on the other side. 

“Tony, my boy,” the man boomed. Tony fought a cringe. He hated being called that. 

“Mr. Stane,” he replied, nodding in greeting. 

“Obie, please, my boy. And who is this?” 

“James Rhodes, a friend from MIT,” Rhodey introduced himself with a nod. 

“Thank you for being here for Tony,” Obie told him, and Rhodey nodded slightly. 

“Of course. There’s no where else I’d rather be.” 

“I’m so sorry, Tony. Can I come in? We need to talk arrangements." Tony stepped aside and gestured Stane into the apartment. 

They sat at the dining table and Stane placed several documents on the table. “You should know, I was a witness to your father’s will, and he appointed me executor. Here is a copy for you to look over. Your father appointed me your legal guardian and temporary CEO for Stark Industries. Their funerals are basically prearranged, they were very clear on their wishes. They will be interred together in New York in three days.” 

Tony just nodded, the odd numb feeling from the day before enveloping him once more as he listened to Obie speak. 

“I’ll arrange for your apartment here to be packed up and shipped back to New York, of course,” Obie continued, and that cut right through the shock. 

“What? NO!” Tony pushed away from the table and stood. “I’m still busy here, Mr. Stane. I’ve got three PhDs that I’m still in the middle of finishing and I’m just a month into my MBA.” He fought to keep his very real desperation off his face. If he got dragged back to New York right now he would have no ability to protect nor care for the bots, no place prepared for them. They would all have to go into hibernation, possibly for a very long time. 

State sighed and shook his head. “Tony, my boy…”

“I’m not your boy, Mr. Stane, and I am not finished at MIT. When I am, I will be amenable to moving elsewhere,” Tony told him flatly. 

“But Tony, how will you prepare for running your company?” Stane tried to object. 

“In the same way I have for the last four years?” Tony suggested. “By studying everything that could possibly be of use, including a Masters in Business Accounting. As I said, when I have finished, I will be amenable to moving. Until then, I need to stay where I am. I will of course come up for the funeral but I really can’t leave Cambridge other than that, right now.” Tony was already planning on slowing his studies down, just enough that they would be completely just AFTER his eighteenth birthday, when he would have his majority and no longer require a putative ‘guardian’. 

Stane frowned but nodded slowly. “If that is the case,” he said slowly, “there are going to be more things that will require you to look them over, work on them. Devices that will need the ‘Stark touch’ to a greater or lesser extent to improve them before they are ready to go to market.” 

Tony wanted to close his eyes and bash his head on the table. He should have seen that coming; clearly his father had prepared Stane on at least some level for dealing with him. 

“I’ll be able to take one every two months,” he declared after several long moments thought. “That is more than I was working on before. Any more than that and it will majorly set back my current graduation schedule.” 

“Two a month,” Stane countered. 

“One every month and a half.” 

“One a month,” Stane watched Tony, waiting to see him flinch, but Tony simply nodded in acceptance. 

Obie sighed and nodded as though this was a huge hardship, but considering that it was three times what Tony had done in the past he didn’t really feel the man was in any position to complain. 

“Very well, Tony, my…,” Stane agreed, cutting off the appellation as Tony glared at him for it. “Well, then…the funeral. It will be in three days; the arrangements are all being taken care of by my PA. Will you have anyone coming with you?” 

“Myself and our Sensei, for sure. Elektra Nachios may also elect to join us,” Rhodey spoke up for Tony. 

“Elektra Nachios, ‘ey? Never too early to start building those advantageous alliances, Tony.” 

“We’re friends. We did an exhibit piece for our first black belt grading together,” Tony replied, disliking the implication in the man’s voice. 

“Yes, well, her father is invited either way, so just let me know where she wants to sit,” Obie said distractedly, flicking through pages. “That seems to be all of our business for now,” Stane’s tone was far less jocular now than it had been when he arrived, and Tony counted that as a win. “I’ll take my leave of you; I have much to keep on top of in order to keep up the company’s reputation. With the manner of death splashed all over the news it will take a bit of work. Good day, Tony, and I am, truly, sorry for you loss.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Stane,” Tony managed, and followed the man back to the door of the apartment, shutting it behind him. When Rhodey went to ask him questions he raised a finger then crossed to the television, turning it on and cranking up the volume, before grabbing a small device Rhodey hadn’t seen before from a hidden compartment in the back of a drawer. He quickly swept every inch of the apartment that Stane had passed through and collected not just one but three separate small devices. He crossed to the sink and, filling a glass with water, dropped all three in with an audible sizzle, then fished them out and smashed them one by one with the base of the glass. 

“Did he…” 

“Bug us? Yes, Rhodey, yes he did. Not the first time, either. I always sweep; Howard never left any after the first time, and he never had the house keeper plant anything, but every time Stane has been here there are at least three bugs by the time he leaves. Creep.” 

“He’s your guardian?” 

“Until next year. He’ll probably push to have it extended to my twenty-first birthday, so I’m going to have to be ready for that. I’m not willing to drag out my time here until I’m twenty-one, so I’ll need to take him to court on that, unfortunately.”

“Well, I’ll testify for you, and I know Sensei will as well. Surely all of your PhD supervisors will; that’s a good dozen different highly qualified and respected professionals. All can speak to you be a clean, sober, and well behaved young man with no behavioural issues to speak of; no reason to keep you under anyone’s guardianship. 

“True, but I can tell you that he will, almost certainly, do everything in his power to create a bad reputation for me this year. He will throw every temptation my way, and may not even stop there. The man is willing to leverage my being allowed to continue university for work on a few designs; and he’s still trying to bug us. I wouldn’t put it past him to have someone drug me in order to create the impression he needs.” 

Rhodey nodded, frowning in thought. “Okay, then. Until you turn eighteen, no more going to university parties. You want to hang out with people, you do it with the kids from the dojo. I’m going to move in completely. You will find someone to act as a low key bodyguard; just be around all the time and on the watch for things that you have already discussed you won’t do - going off alone with people who aren’t on a list, going to parties and so on so that he can step in and get you out, just in case he tries to get someone to drug you and take you somewhere, or if he tries to have you kidnapped. I shudder to think what might happen if he actually succeeded in getting any kind of drugs into your system, after how you reacted to alcohol.” 

Tony grimaced and nodded in agreement. “We'll have to sweep the apartment for bugs at least twice a week, because I wouldn’t put it past him to pay to have someone come in, or even find the right price for the house keeper.” 

Rhodey nodded. “We’ll need to beef up the security on the workroom and make sure that most of our conversations only take place in there, just in case there are any we haven’t caught.”

“That sounds good to me,” Tony nodded again. “Okay, and now we have a battle plan. I would prefer that he didn’t know about you, because that gives him additional leverage, but I’ll have to live with it. Hopefully he'll be satisfied threatening my college career - and how exactly he thinks that is a good idea I’ll never understand.” 

“It is an odd choice of leverage, I must admit. It doesn’t make any sense for him to want your physical presence right now, not when you are out of his way and not messing with the company at all while you’re here. Tell me, will you be in a position to get rid of him once you’re eighteen?” 

Tony grimaced and shook his head. “He owns too much of the company. I’ll be CEO, but he still has a lot of power, and the respect of the board of directors. I’ve got a lot of plans for the future of the company, plans that don’t involve weapons design, but I’m going to have to put up with Stane and his schemes for possibly quite a long time. There’s no way to know for certain." 

“What kind of plans?" Rhodey asked, curious. 

“Expanding into telecommunications and computer technologies, medical and prosthetic technologies, clean energy, low water crops with higher yield and nutrients. Also, I’m going to push as many truly defensive military contacts over weaponry contracts as possible. Better body armour, robots for jobs that are really too dangerous for people, like EOD, better military vehicles. Things like that.”

“Why do that through SI? Why not strike out on your own?” 

“Capital, Rhodey. Yes, I’ve got some from my patents, but not enough to achieve my plans in a realistic time period. And even if I did, I'd still be tied up in SI and they’d still want me helping them to design weapons. Besides, this way I can eventually get the company completely out of the arms business. Until then, I’m willing to do it like you said; make weapons with the view that they protect other people’s children and my own, but the way building weapons makes me feel, Rhodey…I can’t do it forever.” 

Rhodey nodded, not sure if he fully understood Tony’s reasons for not striking out on his own, but the nuances of financial enterprise were rather beyond him - he was an engineer, not a business man by any stretch of the imagination. 

“Once I’m CEO I can push through creating new devisions, particularly since I already have the designs and proof of concepts to show the value we will add to the company with those devisions. For some of them, the potential tax write offs alone will make the division worth funding. I’m using the paperwork, with some disguising, for my MBA project. I just thought I’d be working around, or through, Howard for a while yet.” He shrugged. “And for Mom…I think I’ll set up a charitable foundation in her name, to continue supporting her causes and others.” 

“That’s nice, Tony, really nice,” Rhodey nodded. Tony managed a small smile, but his throat was suddenly growing tighter and there was a burning in his eyes. A sob caught in his throat and then Rhodey was there, pulling him into a rough embrace. He tugged Tony down on the couch as he wept fiercely, uncertain why exactly he was crying. He did weep for his mother, but it felt like he was also weeping for what his parents weren’t. 

The Warmth flared in his chest more fiercely than it had in some time, comfort and love pushing at him, trying to calm him. It felt like it unknotted something tight and angry in his chest. Maybe his parents hadn’t really been parents, but at least he’d had the Warmth. It had kept him company, comforted him and taught him since he was six years old. In a very real way, it was more of a parent to him than either of his ever had been. 

His tears finally ran out and Tony relaxed against the back of the couch, Rhodey’s arm looping loosely around his shoulders. 

“So. We have to be in New York in three days. We’d better let Sensei know, and ask Elektra what she wants to do. She doesn’t have to come - it’s probably going to be a disgustingly long, over the top affair.” 

“I’ll call them,” Rhodey told him. “You go spend some time in the workshop.” 

“Okay,” Tony smiled slightly. “Thanks Rhodey. Best friend a guy could ever have.” 

~~~@@@~~~

The funeral went basically the way Tony had anticipated. He sat with Rhodey, Sensei and Elektra, with Sensei buffering him from Stane despite the man’s best efforts. Tony hadn’t spoken, a fact noted by the media, who reported him to be 'racked with grief but well supported by friends.' They returned to Cambridge the same day despite the four and a half hour drive - the benefit of having paid drivers and very comfortable limousines was that you didn't have to worry about the driver getting tired, because Tony just paid two of them for the whole time and allowed them to trade off as they chose. 

So Tony and Rhodey were back home with the bots by 8pm, and after eating terrible junk food in the car - according to Sensei a comfort essential - they had no appetite for anything approaching dinner. 

Before they went into the Workshop, however, Tony pulled out his bug scanner and went to work on the apartment. He soon found that his suspicion had, indeed been well founded. There had been a much more professional attempt at bugging the apartment, and while the workshop was fortunately clean, the security system did show several attempted entries. 

They collected all of the bugs and disposed of them. 

“Does getting rid of these not tip Stane off to the fact that we’re onto him?” queried Rhodey, and Tony shook his head. 

“I know for a fact that my father swept his office for bugs daily. It’s a good habit for men in our position to follow. Stane will, of course, suspect that we’re onto him, but he’ll have no way of knowing it for sure. For all he knows, I just learned good security protocols from Howard.” 

Rhodey nodded his understanding. “Are you sure that sweeping twice a week will be enough?” 

“For now, provided that we keep most conversation within the workshop. I’ve developed a full biometric protocol for the lab - we’re going to be the only two on the system. I’ll have it installed within the week, then I’ll need your thumbprint, retinal scan and a DNA sample.” Rhodey nodded his understanding. “For now, let’s get back there. We’ve got some very special people to meet.” 

“They’re ready?” Rhodey asked, and Tony nodded with a grin. “Then what are we waiting for?” 

“I don’t know,” Tony replied with a shrug. “What are we waiting for?” Rhodey rolled his eyes and all but dragged Tony to the workshop, where Tony carefully lifted the padded box containing the two little flyers out from under the bench. Rhodey watched with wonder as Tony rested two fingers on each of the tiny chests, one enamelled with turquoise swirls, the other with deep blue. 

Both little bodies lay slack for a single moment longer, then stiffened at the exact same moment as the twinned sparks slipped into their chests. “Hi, there, babies,” Tony whispered as their heads turned towards him, displaying identical jade green eyes. 

“What are their names, Tony? You never told me,” Rhodey asked. 

"I thought they should have names that reflected their nature," Tony told him. “This is Shaheen,” he stroked a finger over the dark blue enamelled head, “and this,” he pointed to the turquoise decorated girl bot, “is Arla. Both are names that refer to hawks.”

"Where are their wings?” asked Rhodey, curious.

“Here,” Tony lifted Arla into his arms, smling at her, and showed Rhodey her back, where the wings were folded flat to the body. Rhodey quickly realised how essential that positioning was - otherwise, the length they were, the bots would be as helpless as turtles when on their backs, a position that the youngest bots frequently found themselves in. “Like with the sensor wings, it will take them a while to have conscious control, but unlike those, they won’t move until they do. New type of body language to learn,” he added, and Rhodey nodded quickly. Tony lifted up Shaheen beside his sister, cradling one in each arm, and grinned down at them. “Time to introduce you guys to the family.” 

~~~@@@~~~

Tony hadn’t put much thought into Rhodey’s recommendation that he get a body guard - other than a basic, 'mmm, yes, a good idea,’ when Sensei, completely unaware (as far as Tony knew anyway) provided the solution. It came in the shape of a rather unassuming looking man, surprisingly a retired (not ex-) marine who Sensei had come into the Dojo to teach for a few weeks. 

‘Happy’ Hogan was a less than fully employed but highly qualified man, and Tony liked his sense of humour. They hit it off as student and teacher, and now that Happy’s time at the dojo was coming to an end, Tony got Rhodey to come with him to talk to the other man. 

Together, they laid out the situation and the things they were concerned about, and Happy quickly agreed to help. He ended up being far more paranoid than Tony had expected, and before the academic year ended Tony found himself extremely grateful for his caution. 

Stane's plan (although they didn't have any direct evidence they knew he was responsible) started off simple. Tony suddenly found himself besieged with invitations to the wildest frat parties on campus. He refused them all, and some of them became less about invitation and more about what might be called ‘forced volunteering’, where they attempted to simply force Tony into the party. 

It was these attempts where Happy first proved his worth, but they certainly weren’t the last of it. For those all he had to do was wade into the groups and get back to back with Tony to see off the supposedly ‘over-enthusiastic revellers’. 

The last attempt was far more serious. If Happy hadn’t been shadowing Tony not only would Stane have gotten what he wanted in terms of pictures but the things that the men had been paid to do to Tony were unspeakable. The intention had been to make Tony appear as a drunk, homosexual, drug addict, with photo evidence of every part of that description. Tony had shivered with fear as the police detective told them what the apprehended kidnapper had told them he’d been hired to do as part of a plea deal against the man who hired him, who was unfortunately a middle man who claimed no knowledge of the identity of his employer. Still, conspiracy to commit rape of a minor got both of them, even the one with a deal, a good long stay in prison. Unfortunately the police station sprang a leak, and the papers ran the (fortunately) accurate story of the attempted kidnapping (no mention of the planned rape) of the Stark heir. 

The article brought Stane back to the apartment (in-between two of his regular, first of the month pick up/delivery visits). He had expressed shock and horror at ‘Tony’s ordeal’. 

“It wasn’t much of anything, really," Tony told him. “The guy didn’t even manage to stick me, Happy grabbed him before then,” this was the story they were sticking with, although it was actually Tony’s own reflexes and training that had taken care of it. They didn’t want that getting out, it was a better idea that Tony remain underestimated when it came to his ability to handle himself. 

“Really, my boy, I think it would be much safer if you would just come home,” objected Stane again. 

“People will be trying to kidnap me for who I am and what I have no matter where I live, Mr. Stane,” Tony pointed out patiently. “We’ve already proven capable of handling the threat here. My security within the apartment is second to none, and Happy has proven himself a very apt and highly discreet guard. He’s also a skilled driver, which considering that I can’t do that legally yet is another good thing.” 

“Very well, very well. And how are you enjoying college life, young Tony? Lots of good company and opportunities to enjoy yourself, I hope?” 

Tony had to wonder if the man actually believed this was a subtle line of questioning. His jocular tone as he asked the question left little doubt about what he was asking about, after all. 

“I am far too busy to waste my time with parties, Mr. Stane. Between the additional work I am carrying out for SI, my MBA and my three theses and PhD projects I do not have time for university parties. I prefer to spend my very sparse free time either at the dojo or with the friends I have made there,” Tony told him, calmly. “As it happens, we do have a good time.” 

“Excellent, I’m happy to hear it. Well, my boy, if there’s nothing I can do for you here, I will take my leave back to New York. The company is going well, as I’m sure you are aware. Your last three contributions have increased our projected profits by over 5%, and increased our market share by 2%. You’re doing good work, Tony, important work. Keep it up.” Stane clapped a hand to Tony’s shoulder, gripping just slightly too tight, pushing the tendons into the bone a bit. 

Tony suppressed a wince without any particular difficulty; the pressure was nothing compared to what anyone at the dojo, even the beginner kids could cause more pain than that. Instead he thanked Stane and showed him out the door, than performed his customary bug sweep. The man must have been getting tired of losing the things - there was only one today as opposed to his usual five. 

“Do you think he got the message?” Rhodey asked once they were back in the workshop behind closed doors. 

“Well, he may have gotten a message; whether he actually heard what I was saying is another question entirely,” Tony shrugged. 

~~~@@@~~~

Rhodey smiled affectionately as he looked up from where he was working on his project to see Tony just hanging out with his bots. Tony owned pretty much every game produced for children and toddlers, and he spent hours - hours that Rhodey knew he only had due to his bizarre sleeping patterns - playing them with the bots. Currently, they were all crouched around the board of Candyland, waiting while Dotty rolled the dice. 

Tony had both twins sitting on his lap and was patiently explaining the rules (for the third time) as they watched Dotty take her turn. He then rolled for Arla and watched as Butterfingers carefully moved her token, before repeating the action for Shaheen and watching You performed the same service for his little brother. 

It was a quiet, peaceful sight, and Rhodey picked up the camera to take a shot. He never got tired of building up Tony’s photo album. They must have taken at least a thousand through the years, some posed but mostly just snapped as the opportunity arose, by whichever of the two of them was closest to the camera. 

Rhodey chuckled softly as Shaheen kicked his feet in excitement, then turned his attention back to his project. A quiet night in was always a pleasant event, and it wasn’t like they were uncommon, but with the extra security measures because of Stane hanging over their heads the stress level was so much higher now. Being able to just unwind like this, watching Tony be completely himself was a joy. 

Right now, the kid was carefully directing Shaheen’s attention back to the play on the board, and nodding as he listened to whatever the tiny bot was saying. It was odd; Rhodey knew that size-wise, the Sparklings were all basically the same, but there was still a perception of the youngest as being smaller. Dummy seemed…more substantial, somehow. When he first met them, he couldn’t have told them apart, but now he had no such difficulties, and it wasn’t down to the colours they wore on their metal skin. 

Rhodey watched for another minute and took two more photos before setting the camera aside and turning back to his work with a sigh. Still, he needed to sleep tonight, unlike some people who could wait until the bots went down before starting their work. 

He looked up again when there was a commotion and found that he had been so absorbed in his work that he had missed the end of the game and the beginning of the next activity - one that never failed to make him laugh as the tiny bots, each to the best of their personal physical control, performed martial arts moves. Watching a group of two foot tall, but proportioned like adults, robots perform martial arts moves was unbelievably adorable, especially when some of them still wobbled on their legs and several of couldn’t even stand alone at all yet. Those few were instead working on pulling themselves up and down on the side lines, strengthening their control of their legs. 

Right now, Tony was leading the bots through a Tai Chi set, while the twins and Gwen - the last of whom could sort of walk but still didn’t have the control for Tai Chi - seemed to be having some kind of race to see who could stand up and sit down the most times though the course of the set. The twins were actually challenging Gwen, but Arla was clearly tiring. Finally she fell back when she went to stand and uttered a little snuffle, which immediately centred Shaheen’s attention on her. It was something Rhodey had quickly noticed with the twins - if something was upsetting or exciting the other, it was of immediate concern to their sibling. 

Moving to head off what he could see coming, Rhodey quickly stood and crossed the room to them, swooping Arla off the floor in a move that always brought him a delighted burble, and this instance was no exception. 

“Are you getting tired, baby girl?” he asked with a smile, and Arla nodded up at him, eyes fading in and out as she fought sleep. “Okay, sweetie,” he started to turn when the hem of his pants was grabbed and he looked down to find Shaheen glaring up at him. “Ooooh, sorry,” he apologised teasingly. “Did I take your sister away?” Shaheen nodded very definitely, glaring at him. “Do you want to come too?” Shaheen considered for a moment, then held up his arms imperiously. Rhodey, biting his lip to keep from laughing, lifted him up and carried the pair of them over to the bedroom area, where he sat down in a rocking chair. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but neither Tony nor Rhodey liked to just put them down and leave them to fall asleep, and they got fussy if they tried to stay out with the group when they really needed to sleep. So Rhodey sat and rocked. Arla was asleep within about five seconds of the soothing motion. Shaheen held out for a little longer, but within ten minutes Rhodey had them both down in the crib that they shared. The two would sleep until at least 4pm the next day - they were still in the stage of only spending about six hours every day awake. 

Break over, Rhodey returned to work, getting a thankful nod from Tony and in turn from the remainder of the bots as they mimicked the move. This time he couldn’t contain the snort of laughter that accompanied him back down into the reams of blueprints spread over his workbench.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fallout continues, Tony's college career comes to an end and he puts various plans into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY. I swear, every time the internet resets, it gets chewed through within a day or so. Such is the way of things when this many people use very limited internet. I've been limiting my usage (not entirely by choice, it just hasn't been working) and I let this slip through the cracks. So again, I'm sorry, and here is a (hopefully) long chapter to make up for it!

“Happy,” Tony grinned and waved the other man into the apartment. Having just swept for bugs, he felt safe enough to have the conversation they were about to share in the lounge, since he wasn’t going to be bringing Happy into the workshop. “I need your help with something.” 

“What is it, Boss?” Happy sat down on the couch and waited for Tony to explain. 

“I want to build a house, to have it ready before my eighteenth birthday, so that I’ll have a house available with no ties to Stane, one he can’t tie up to show how I have no ability to safely house myself. In order to get it done, though, it can’t be done in my name. Basically, I’m asking you to sign your name to the purchase of the land, which I will actually take care of in terms of paying for, and sign the papers for the contractors, who I will again pay. On my eighteenth birthday, I’m asking you to sign it back over to me. I have a contract written up to that effect, if you’re willing to sign it, and Rhodey can witness for us. This is of course considered additional work that you will be appropriately paid for.” 

”I’d be happy to, Boss. So where’s this land you’re looking to buy?” 

“Malibu,” Tony told him with a grin, laying the papers on the table and pointing to where Happy’s signature was required. Rhodey, who had been sitting quietly to one side, leaned in and signed on the witness’s line. “And that’s all done. I’ve already contacted the contractors I want and negotiated the price; the plans have approval and are ready to go. All we have to do is contact the real estate agent and purchase the land.” 

“Okay, boss, you just let me know what you need me to do and when and we’ll make it happen,” Happy told him, smiling. He didn’t like Stane any more than Rhodey and Tony did, and had no problem with helping them stick it to him.

The plans for the house were something Tony had been working on for some time. He had no intention of moving back into the estate where he had grown up, nor a desire to live in the house his mother had mostly used for entertaining. 

The house he was building would have a large public area, which would include all entertaining spaces, an office, the kitchen and guest quarters, but the real beauty of it was his private quarters. Those took up half of all three levels; the only entrance down in the workshop on the bottom level, with a much larger, dedicated playroom in the middle and bedroom at the top - shared, of course. Even now, when Tony did sleep, it tended to happen on the mattress in the playroom. The three level structure within the house had its own private elevators - human sized and dumbwaiters that opened at floor level for the bots. He had claimed, when talking to the architecture professor who proofed the designs for structural soundness and legality that they were for pets. The man had shrugged and moved on. 

~~~@@@~~~

Stane’s penultimate plan came into fruition, or tried to, the day of Tony’s eighteenth birthday, at his birthday party. Fortunately, Tony had requested (and been granted) use of the dojo for his party, which was attended by the members of the dojo, sensei and his family, Rhodey and a few of Tony’s professorial advisors who he had spent enough time working with to become rather friendly. 

It was half an hour into the party when everything tried to go to hell. Tried, because once all of the guests had turned up the doors had been locked, meaning that when the ‘party crashers’ (already drunk, and accompanied by about twenty strippers) tried to come in, they couldn’t. The papparazzi showed up just in time to take photos of them being taken away by the police for attempted B&E, as they had tried to force their way onto the property. The police had given a statement, as had Tony, and the story that ran ended up being that someone had tried to play a bad practical joke, sending a bunch of strippers to a party where well over half the attendees were underage and alcohol wasn’t even being served. It was buried way in the back, really only making the paper at all because it was Tony’s 18th, but Tony wasn’t really newsworthy. He spent all his time in study and didn’t attract attention, so even the Stark heir being involved wasn’t going to push it to the front page, as a successful party crashing probably would have. 

The next day in the courts of New York, Obadiah Stane applied for continued custody of Tony Stark, claiming that he lacked the competence and responsibility to handle his own affairs and they should be given over to him until Tony was twenty one. He ensured that Tony’s notifications of the hearing were ‘lost in transit’ so that he would not be turning up to plead his case. 

Fortunately, through hiring a lawyer whose secretary apparently knew everyone and everything, Tony had heard about exactly when the hearing was planned. He turned up accompanied by a young but up and coming New York lawyer by the name of Harvey Spectre and a full dozen character witnesses - Rhodey, Sensei and all ten of his PhD supervisors, who couldn’t decide which of them should be there so all elected to come, even if they were not all required to speak. 

The expression on Stane’s face when they filed into their side of the courtroom made Tony so happy that with a memory like his he could save it forever. He clearly knew that his case didn’t have a leg to stand on if Tony actually showed up to defend it, his face said as much, but he was obviously not prepared to throw in the towel on it just yet. 

His lawyer was most impassioned, and spoke of Tony as an innocent, simple in the ways of the world, who needed the support and protection of a trusted adult to protect him from making foolish mistakes as he took his first steps out of the ‘ivory towers’ of MIT. 

Harvey stood up and tore the case, and the man presenting it, to shreds. He showed how, rather than an unworldly boy, they had a sensible if somewhat serious man who had made definite decisions on things he did and didn’t want to do, such as drinking and partying. He presented the evidence of multiple character witnesses, all highly respectable people who in turn found Tony to be respectable. 

Tony took the stand and admitted to his one teenage attempt at drinking and how much he had hated the effects and looking in the mirror to see his father looking back - the judge’s face and Harvey’s both looked drawn at that admission. He told how he found he much preferred having his fun without alcohol involved - he always knew he made his own decisions and he got to remember them the next day, as he put it. 

When the Judge rose to deliver her decision, the look she levelled Obadiah with was disgusted. 

“Mr Stane, I not only refuse your request to extend Mr. Stark’s minor status until the age of twenty-one, I ask what you have been doing as a guardian that you think that the young man we have met and heard described here today is even in need of one. Clearly you do not know him at all, a terrible statement to make about someone who is meant to have been responsible for a child for a full year.” 

“Well, Tony declined to leave MIT to return to New York…” Obadiah began to prevaricate. 

“And in that time, as we have heard, he has almost finished his last three of eight total PhDs and an MBA as well as earning his third dan black belt. He has been clean and sober, despite strong efforts on large parts of the student body to see him otherwise. Mr. Stane, I am seriously tempted to issue you with a fine for wasting court time with a frivolous suit. As it is, you will be covering Mr. Stark’s court costs as well as your own.” 

Tony and the others contained their merriment, beyond a smiling handshake between Tony and Harvey, until they were out of the courtroom and away from Stane. 

“Did you see his face when we walked in?” wheezed Rhodey, and Tony nodded from where he was bent double, laughing himself nearly sick. 

Tony finally pulled himself together and turned to the very satisfied looking lawyer. “Harvey, I’m putting you on retainer as my personal lawyer. As soon as I can push the change through, I will have Pearson Hardman on as Stark Industry’s legal counsel as well, with you as our lead. Feel free to share that with your boss or keep it to yourself until it happens, as you prefer.” Harvey grinned. He liked the kid; he had a good head on his shoulders. He was maybe a bit more serious than he needed to be, but it took all kinds to make a world. It wasn’t that he didn’t have fun, he just didn’t really do it the way that most adults did. It would have made more sense to Harvey if he was religious, but he’d been definite on that, just saying something about ‘belief in higher powers’.

“It was a pleasure, Tony. Let me know when you want to go to work forcing Stane out; I’ll be there to help.” 

~~~@@@~~~

Two days after he turned eighteen, Tony stood Vivas for his final three PhDs and MBA. It took three days to complete all of it, but in the end Tony was a doctor eight times over. He returned back to the apartment to find Stane waiting for him and had to contain his surprised frown. 

“Can I help you, Mr. Stane?” 

“Oh, no, my boy, I’m here to help you. Now that you’ve finally completed all of these studies you’ll be needing to move, I thought I could assist you in your choice of which New York property to move to.” 

“New York?” Tony affected surprise. “But Mr. Stane, Stark Industries R&D is in Malibu; in order to be as fully involved with it as possible I have chosen to move to my house out there; it will be ready for me to move in approximately a week. To be frank, I think we would be best to move corporate headquarters out there as well, consolidate our locations for easier communication.” 

“Your father never found it necessary…”

“My father was more interested in a location that allowed him easy access to the Arctic circle, Mr. Stane. You are merely fortunate that he also preferred the comforts of city living enough not to drag you all out to Alaska.” 

Stane, after a long moment, chose to laugh at that. “Very well, my boy, very well. I will put it to the board…” 

“You misunderstand me, I’m afraid, Mr. Stane. As CEO and chief stockholder, I am mandating this change. I still hold 58% of Stark Industries stocks, after all, in addition to inheriting the position as CEO.” Tony was careful, as always, to keep his tone free of antagonism. He still had nothing ‘on’ Stane, and as long as that was the case he had no way of ousting the other major stock holder. 

“If you continue throwing your weight around like that, Mr. Stark, you may find that the board comes together to take away that title.” 

“You forget, Mr. Stane, that I do have a degree in business. I am also intimately acquainted with the Stark Industries company by-laws. I am well aware that the ONLY way this company will get a new CEO is either through me appointing one or my no longer being able to fill the role. Either way, I do not intend to throw my weight around, as you put it. I do have a number of ideas for expanding the company that I believe will bring us a great deal of profit, though, and allow us to dominate the market in new areas. I’ve called a board meeting, the last for our New York offices, for this Friday, where I will be announcing several of those plans. I already have the patent applications well in hand for them.” 

“Not even a small preview for your father’s best friend and business partner?” Stane tried to sound gently cajoling, but to Tony it just sounded fake. He wondered what his impression of Stane would be if he hadn’t encountered the Warmth as a child. He didn’t often wonder what his life would be like without it, but this time he did. He rather suspected that, if he had continued to feel the desperation for his father’s attention that he had felt as a child, he would have been much more attached to the man, if he had given the kind of attention he had first attempted to lure Tony in with. 

Of course, without the Warmth, it was possible that he would have been closer to his father as well, as he probably wouldn’t have had the same antipathy towards the design and manufacture of weapons. Well, there was no way to know and no point playing with what ifs and maybes. 

“I prefer to keep this under wraps for now,” Tony told him, smiling mysteriously. “You’ll see, come Friday. I think you’ll rather like it, in point of fact. I will tell you that conservative estimates put the profit, profit mind you, in the very high millions.” Stane’s eyebrows shot up at that, and he nodded slowly. 

“Very well, my boy, very well. I’ll be patient for now. I had been doing some preparation for recruiting your PA, but if you’re moving the corporate offices we can wait and recruit locally, save on the costs of relocation allowances.” Tony decided to allow Stane to continue on that - he wasn’t bothered about recruiting his own PA, not even sure he saw the need for one at all, so it was a small concession to give the man in order to know who would be the most obvious of the man’s spies. He could use someone to ferry papers around for him, organise his dry cleaning and the like. 

“Sounds great, Mr. Stane.” 

“Please, my boy, I beg you, call me Obie. I’ve known you for so much of your life, it feels ridiculous to be so formal.” 

“Very well, Obie,” Tony finally conceded. The added distance had done its work, and it didn’t hurt to allow the man to believe he might be melting, even just slightly. 

“Thank you, my boy. Well, that does seem to be everything, so I will take my leave of you now. I’ll see you on Friday; maybe we could have lunch? I know where we can get the best pizza in America.” 

Tony had to smile at that, even though it was Stane making the offer. The man had clearly done some research on him to know his weakness for a slice. 

“Well, I’d certainly be interested in learning where to buy that,” he declared, and Stane beamed at him, clearly feeling that he’d made great strides in building a relationship between them. 

~~~@@@~~~

The board had, at first, been unimpressed by Tony’s intention to move the company, several of them were very voluble in expressing those objections. 

One had stood up and declared flatly that Tony had neither the authority nor the temerity to actually move the company, and demanded to know what his real game was. 

“I think, Mr. Daulish, you need to brush up on your company knowledge,” Tony told the man, who scowled. “As duly appointed CEO and holder of a full 58% of SI stocks, I am well within my rights to do this. As to my game, I wish to let you know that we are going to be expanding SI in several new directions, highly profitable ones.”

“And what would those be, Tony my boy?” asked Obie, and for once Tony was glad to hear the man speak, even as he waved the belligerent board member into a seat. 

“Well, as I said they are several. Hands up who here purchased one of the latest cell phones?” Hands all around the table went up, and Tony nodded. “Who is still on the waiting list?” More than half the hands stayed up. “You’re going to be glad of that in just a few moments,” Tony informed them with a grin. He turned to the black screen he had brought into the room with him and placed on a stand, tapping it once. It lit up, bringing surprised exclamations from the group as Tony began manipulating it. “This is one of my personal computers; they are currently not viable for commercial production,” he told them as he tapped an icon. “And this is the new Stark Cell Phone,” he added as it popped up on the screen. He gave them a moment to look at the overview, which showed something that was quite different from current phones. “It is five inches long and two wide. It combines the functions of a phone with those of a PDA and a pager, and includes the ability to send short, written messages back and forth. As you can see, it has a QWERTY style keyboard, with the number pad located here, in the centre,” he gestured to the area. It is additionally set apart from what is currently on the market by this,” the phone expanded on the screen, pulling out into component parts. “This battery has a life of a full ten hours, and only two hours time is required for full recharging. In weight, the phone is only about two hundred grams.” 

“This is ludicrous!” objected Mr. Daulish, pushing himself upright again. “This…boy…is making fools of us. There is no way that the technology to make this thing even exists!”

“It all exists, although we will have to put together a commercially viable set up, it’s true,” Tony replied.

“If it exists, show us these phones,” demanded Mr. Daulish, lip curling as he glared at Tony in disbelief. 

“With pleasure, Mr. Daulish. Bring in the first box, please,” he called back out the door, and an aide brought in a large, relatively flat black box, which he laid down on the table. “Thank you, David,” Tony nodded to the aide, who smiled slightly and returned back out the door. Tony stepped up to the table and, in the silence that followed, carefully opened the box, the loud clicks of the locks only raising the tension and excitement within the room. He opened the box to display a padded interior bearing an even dozen of the phones. “Please, take one,” Tony directed them, passing the box down the table. “Examine them. These are already connected to the cell phone network. The briefing packets underneath explain all of the specs and how to use the phones.” He watched as each man took a phone and began to examine it closely, exclaiming over the size and lightness, and when the screen lit up like a pager they were even more delighted. “Would anyone care to hazard a guess as to the production cost per unit, once the facilities to construct these are up and running?” Tony drawled, drawing the group’s attention from the exciting new technology in their hands and back to himself. 

“There is no way you could produce a unit like this for less than $400, surely,” stated a board member, Mr. Michaels, definitely. 

Tony smiled. “Any other estimates?” 

“I would put the cost at more like $500, myself,” said another board member. 

“Would you believe me if I said that you could make one of those for $200, manpower included?” Tony lifted another set of papers from under the foam in the box and handed them to the nearest board member to be shared around the table before turning back to the screen and pulling up a new display. “I’ll leave the numbers with you to peruse at your pleasure. I will need to take those prototypes back for now, but as soon as we are ready to go public every board member will receive one for their use. The patent is already finalised, and as soon as we have the facilities prepared - you’ll find costing for the conversion of one of our existing factories included in this briefing packet, along with information on the projected profits and market share - we will go into production. The fact is, being able to produce with the speed and cost that we will, we can basically corner the market on this, and this is only the most basic model. Once we’ve come up with cheaper ways to produce certain parts, we’ll have something much better.” 

There was nodding and appreciative murmuring around the table now, and Tony nodded. “The telecommunications division will be set up concurrent to the move, if that meets with the board’s approval. With a new division, of course, comes a new seat on the board, and we will need to find the best possible person to fill it. In this, I must plead a certain level of ignorance and throw myself on your much greater wisdom.” 

There was much louder murmuring around the table now as the idea truly began to sink in. Moving the company into an entirely new direction, the creation of a new division, the incredible increase in profits that this showed the potential for…it was unprecedented.

“Of course, Tony,” Obie spoke up from his seat at the other end of the table, nodding. “This is going to blow the competition out of the water. If we can produce at the rate and cost you’ve described here…we’ll take their entire waiting list and have people who could never have afforded the current models throwing themselves at us. You said you had more to show us?” He smiled broadly now, and Tony mirrored it, feeling a glow of accomplishment as his first strike towards taking SI out of the weapons game went home. 

“Yes, actually, there are several other areas that I think the company could do with expanding into…” 

He went on to demonstrate the new computer, which while nothing like as advanced as the model he had brought in to use for his presentation still had at least ten times the processing power as the best on the market, but was also smaller and with better screen quality to boot. Then it was the new armour plating for military vehicles and the personal protective gear - the body armour - that he’d designed. 

Then he showed the portable computer, which had built in networking capability. Companies were just starting to implement ARPA style connections between their own computers, this would enable them, and eventually the general public to network much more effectively. 

His second to last demonstration was of plans that would halve the size and massively increase the energy production of the arc reactor. It would give true potential for the thing to be used on a commercial scale, greatly reducing their dependence on fossil fuels if the government would accept its use. Considering that they were a much less dangerous alternative to nuclear power and were clean to boot, they may get to implement them. At the very least, every Stark facility would be effectively off the grid. Even if the government didn’t accept those, there were the much improved solar panels and wind turbines that they would be able to put into use. The solar panels they could even commercialise for people to put on their own homes, taking them off the grid. With the rising awareness of the impact humanity was having on the planet, safe sources of clean energy were becoming of greater and greater importance to the public. 

At least he made his final statements. “These are the beginning of a new era for Stark Industries, one of growth and expansion, of bringing more into the world than simply weapons. There is another division that I am going to lay out the plans for with you. This one does have some potential for return, but its largest benefit will be in public relations and humanitarian interests. This division will investigate the potential for intelligent crops which require less water, have higher nutrient content and the like. With these, we will be able to do our part in feeding the third world. Medical research, equipment and biological research alike. One important focus there will be on the use of robotics in developing better prosthesis, help out our wounded soldiers as they come back. Medical research will also looking into improving organ replacement, improving life saving equipment and so on. Stark Industries has, for too long, been known only as dealers in death. We are going to change that. Anyone who does not wish to have a part in that future, you know where the door is.” With that, and without giving them an opportunity to respond, Tony turned and left. Obadiah stood and followed him out and down the hall, finding him leaning against the wall, breathing hard. 

“I’m proud of you, my boy. I had no idea that you had accomplished so much. With you at the helm we are going to take this company far.” Tony grinned at him, and Obadiah laughed. “You look wiped, and I believe I promised you the best pizza around. Let’s go eat.” 

Tony went and ate with the older man, finding it actually a rather pleasant experience, at least until they were nearly done. 

“We do still need to discuss your involvement in the military R&D, Tony. Cell phones and computers are all very well, and the body armour has great potential, but we are still weapon mongers, and you show far too much potential in that area to not employ it.” 

Tony suppressed a sigh. He had known that this was coming, known that there was no way to completely divorce his company from its history immediately, or even soon. Even with what he had shown the board today he’d have had to be deaf to ignore the whispers of military applications. He knew that the new battery packs he’d designed for the phone and the laptop had potential for a great many other applications and accepted it to start them down the road of demilitarisation. 

“After seeing what you came out with today, though, my boy, I think I understand a little better,” Stane continued, and Tony controlled a twitch. “Your first love isn’t in weapons, is it?” 

Tony shook his head slightly, and Stane nodded. “You show incredible promise and potential, Tony, and the advances you have made and brought to us just today will propel the company into so many new areas, and with advances beyond what you’ve already produced we will take the market by storm. Everyone will be using Stark products. The good publicity of your planned humanitarian projects cannot be underestimated, either, and the potential for tax advantages must also be considered. I think we can keep up your current schedule on involvement in military projects, unless you are working on something exceptionally large that runs over more than one month, for now. Ease you into it. You may find that you develop a taste for it; you have the flair already.” 

Tony knew that if he objected, seriously objected, to this it would result in Stane opposing one or more of the projects he had set in motion today. Without Stane’s backing more of the board would pull out their support and everything would become exponentially more difficult. So instead he smiled, nodded, and raised his coke to toast Stane, who met it with his wine glass.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas my lovelies! Enjoy this!

Three months later, Tony looked Rhodey up and down with a combination of fear and pride. His brother looked good in the uniform, but Tony couldn’t help the fear that that same piece of fabric inspired in him, with the reminder of mortality it seemed to bring with it. Rhodey’s orders had come through, and with Tony and the bots now settled in Malibu he was going to repay the debt he owed his country for his college education. 

“Take care of yourself, kid,” Rhodey told Tony, who grinned at him with as much bravado as he could muster. 

“You too. Remember, you’ve got a lot of nephews and nieces waiting for you to come back.” 

Rhodey chuckled at that, and pulled Tony into a quick hug. “Keep your sparring up, kid. Sensei gave you those contacts and you built that fabulous dojo; use them. And build fantastic things.” 

“You know it,” Tony grinned cockily. 

Tony wasn’t sure how to feel. He’d known that Rhodey was going to be a pilot, but now his head was buzzing with improvements for anything and everything involving fighter jets, helicopters and troop transport plans, improving safety, radar and radar jamming, anti-weapon systems and the like. 

“Oh, I know that look,” Rhodey grinned. “If you can get them to buy the plans, kid, go for it.” He took a single step forward and grabbed Tony in a tight hug. “I’ll write and call when I can. Love you, kiddo.” 

“You’re the best brother anyone could ever dream of, Rhodey. Thanks for being mine,” Tony whispered. “Love you too.” 

They released each other and Rhodey stepped back, snapping to attention for a long moment and saluting Tony, who rather than mock his friend as a small part of him wanted to gave a respectful nod before Rhodey turned and walked to join his squadron at the base of the giant plane that would whisk them away to the Incirlik, Turkey. Tony stood, surrounded by family members of Rhodey’s squadron members, and watched as they marched onto the plane to the sound of a brass band. For the first time he could remember in his life, Tony prayed. 

~~~@@@~~~

Tony looked over the papers he had laid out on his kitchen table with satisfaction. SI now dominated the field in every area that Tony had expanded the company into. The move to Malibu had not harmed the company in any way that had been predicted by the more pessimistic board members. Things ran smoothly and Tony’s projections had proven accurate when it came to profit at market share as well, if sometimes a little on the cautious side. 

The government was holding off on allowing the arc reactors for anything other than SI’s private use, since they couldn’t stop that, and the company capitalised on showing that they were completely independent from fossil fuels for their energy requirements. This had the added benefit of cutting their electrical costs to zero, once the reactors were constructed. 

Of course, none of the things Tony had given to SI had been the limit of what he could produce. He could, if necessary, make an arc reactor the size of his fist, and the computers he produced for his personal use made even the one he employed for the purposes of display look outdated. The computers weren’t on the market yet for two reasons - first, that people wouldn’t be ready for them. It was a fact of marketing that you had to build people up towards a goal product. People accepted that they could have computers for home use now, but accepting that they could have something that futuristic was asking too much. Secondly, there was the simple fact that the production cost was just too high right now. Tony paid for his own computers out of his personal wealth and could, therefore, build whatever he wanted. 

The only real fly in the ointment - other than Rhodey being on a six month deployment off doing things that could get him killed - was Obadiah Stane and his insistence on Tony needing a PA. They had been in Malibu for almost six months and Tony had already gone through five of them. 

The first Tony had caught trying to break through the security system into his workshop, and since she had been well aware that she was not permitted access Tony had fired her on the spot. Then there were two who had tried to seduce him and completely failed at accepting his refusals. One of them had even tried to slip him whisky in his coffee, apparently feeling that if he just ‘loosened up a bit’ he would be open to her attempts. Those two he had reported to HR and, other than ordering them relocated refused to have a say in dealing with them. The fourth had been caught trying to sell plans and parts to a rival company, Hammer, and her trial was ongoing. The latest attempt, the one he’d sent off three days ago, seemed to take Tony’s refusal well enough when he gave it over a month ago, a week after they started working together. She had seemed to have potential as a colleague, even someone who he could call a work friend, and she had lasted far longer than her predecessors, until he had walked into his kitchen earlier in the week to find her cooking in her underwear, calling him ‘honey’ and ‘sweetheart’ and apparently believing they were in a relationship. She had attacked him with a butcher knife when he’d tried to talk her down. She was under psychiatric care and at last check kept insisting they were engaged. 

Tony wasn’t sure if Stane was actually trying to sabotage him or if these were honest attempts to find him someone to work with. He still didn’t think he needed a PA, but he could understand Stane’s reasoning. The fact was, if he didn’t have the odd sleeping patterns he did he wouldn’t have been able to keep up with the paperwork alongside all of his designing work and spending time with bots, sparring in the dojo and setting up the Maria Stark charitable foundation. He was already organising the first gala, and he had to admit that while she had been here Susan had been indispensable in her assistance in that area. 

He honestly hoped to find someone he could really work with and trust, because while he could do all of the company paperwork it really wasn’t his forte. He did it because he was determined to change the company, and to accomplish that he needed to know what, exactly, was going on inside it. 

The new PA was meant to be turning up today, and Tony found he still had it in him to hope to find someone he could work with long term. He didn’t know what kind of stories were making their way through HR about him - he’d been clear about his reasons for rejecting the two who got sent back into the pool, but what they may have spread as rumours was another question entirely. 

The doorbell rang, and Tony stood to answer it. He didn’t keep staff at the house, preferring to make do for himself and avoid the potential complications of staff who might not be trustworthy. 

The woman standing on his doorstep looked up at him in surprise when he answered the door himself. She appeared to be around his own age, which placed her actually in her early twenties, and he thought rather objectively pretty - pale with a head of fiery red hair. She also held an air of determination about her that Tony wasn’t sure what to make of, and a rather forbidding expression quickly took the place of the surprise. 

“Mr. Stark. I am Ms. Potts, I’ve been sent by HR as your new PA.” 

“Of course, Ms. Potts, please come in. And do call me Tony; when people say Mr. Stark I start looking for my father.” It was a lie, but he really didn’t care for being called that so he told it anyway.

Ms. Potts frowned slightly as she followed him through the house. “I am not sure that that is appropriate, Mr. Stark. I wish to make it very clear from the outset that this will be a professional relationship and that what you have tried in the past will not merely be met by a new PA. There will be a law suit.”   
“Wait, wait, what?” Tony turned and stared at her. “Ms. Potts, I believe you are acting under false intelligence here. The only two of my previous PAs still employed by Stark Industries were removed at my own request after they proved incapable of believing that their so-called ‘charms’ were not enough to lure me into bed. If what you’re telling me right now is that you aren’t interested in attempting that, I am very happy to hear it.” He moved around the breakfast island and lifted the coffee pot. “Coffee?” 

“Oh, well…yes, please,” Ms. Potts appeared rather startled. “You have quite the reputation at HR, you know.” She accepted the mug and tray of condiments, quickly doctoring her drink and watching as Tony took a long draw from his own, straight black, cup. 

“I’m really not quite sure how,” Tony replied, although in truth he was. He was fairly sure that Obie had arranged for rumours to spread and he really didn’t understand why. He was doing good work for the company, he had expanded it far beyond anything that his father had ever dreamed of, he was even doing a certain amount of weapons work. For some reason, Obie seemed to feel like Tony needed to be a drunken debaucher, and he could only feel that it came from him knowing his father. Obie seemed to feel that Tony should really just BE Howard, carousing, womanising weapons maker that he was. “Well, maybe that’s part of why my PAs so far have been the way they are. They almost all seem to think they can expect just to jump into bed with me. Not the first time I’ve come up against the attitude, but it does rather drive me mad. So, if you came here with the intention of telling me that there’s no way it will happen, I think we can probably work together, Ms. Potts.”

“If I’m to call you Tony, please call me Pepper,” the red head replied after a long, considering sip of her coffee. 

“Pepper Potts?” Tony raised an eyebrow, but didn’t make any of the oh-so-teenage comments that were on the tip of his tongue. This woman already had the potential to have a very low opinion of him, just because she had heard lies spread through his own company, either to maintain the 

“Well, my name is Virginia, but I can’t stand that or any of its variants, and Pepper is the best nickname I have ever been given, so…” 

“Pepper it is. A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Let me give you the tour of the part of the house you will have access to. In case it’s not clear, that means that there are parts you do not have access to, and attempting to access them is a fireable offence.” He led the way, both of them sipping their coffee, through the house, pointing out salient features. 

Finally, they arrived at the underground door in a solid concrete wall that lead into his workshop. 

“The workshop is through here. Same security system as the bedroom. If you can’t find me, I’m probably in here. Press that button,” he pointed to a small one next to the security scanner, “and it will alert me that you’re out here. There is an alert for when you come through the main system, but if I’m particularly wrapped up I might not hear it. Trust me, this I can’t ignore.” 

Tour done, they headed back to the kitchen, where Tony refreshed their cups, and sat down at the paper-covered table. 

“I must admit, Tony, I find what you’ve accomplished with Stark Industries in just six months astonishing. So many new directions at once, and the way you have risen to dominate those markets is just incredible.”

“I want my family name to mean something more than the latest piece of weaponry available,” Tony told her as he led the way back into the sun drenched kitchen. ‘One day, I hope it won’t mean that at all,’ he added to himself. 

“Well, you’ve certainly done a lot to accomplish that.” 

“Thanks. Now, your first order of business - I need you to get the jet prepped for a trip to Rome, and get me hotel bookings for two - a suite with separate rooms - at the best hotel you can find for a week starting Friday.” 

“Do we have business interests in Rome?” asked Pepper even as she jotted notes on a piece of paper. “Will you be needing me to arrange any meetings, or secretarial services?” 

“No, this is personal,” Tony replied with a shrug. “My best friend is on deployment to Incirlik Air Force Base, he’s got a week’s leave coming up and he’s hopping a flight to Rome. I’m meeting him there.” 

“I’ll get it organised. Just a week away?” 

“I’ve got too much to do here to be away for longer. Second order of business - I’m organising a Gala to launch a foundation in my mother’s name, to continue supporting her charitable causes and others. Your predecessor and I made some inroads on it before things went…downhill with her. We need to pick up where she left off. We’ve contacted the potential board members, they have all accepted, and several have enough time right now to help with the organisation, but without someone more skilled at organising such events than me at the helm, we’re in trouble.” 

“You’ve got your previous PA’s notes, I assume?” Pepper asked, and Tony nodded and handed over a large packet. 

“Great,” said Pepper, already distracted as she flicked through the papers. “Okay, I can do a lot with this. Is there anything else you need from me at the moment?” 

“Bringing me papers from corporate. I spend most of my time working here, or at R&D when they need me there. A lot of what we’re working with is my design, and I’m instructing our people in it and the advances, getting them up to speed so they can start building up from our new base level. They’re catching on very fast, we really do have the best of the best. We’re working on making many of my designs at a cost that is commercially viable. So, I don’t have much time to get into corporate, but I need to keep abreast of what’s happening there.” 

“You sound like you think there’s something you can’t trust about corporate,” commented Pepper, watching him. 

“No, I don’t think so, but I am CEO and I need to be on top of things,” Tony lied with a shrug. “We’re making a lot of big changes, introducing all of these new divisions, I need to know what’s going on where so that we can smooth out any rough edges as we go. Introducing so many new divisions at once, it’s either a whole lot of new faces in charge or we’ve left holes in other places…it’s a lot, basically, and while my main interest is in the tech side, I have the know-how to run the company, and it’s the only way of knowing it’s happening the way I want it to.” He shrugged again, turning away. “So, yeah. Keeping my diary, keeping me on time, running papers for me. I tend to get caught up in what I’m working on and lose track of time, so I really do need you to help me out with that.”

“Not picking up your dry cleaning?” she asked with a mocking little smile. 

“Well, not today,” Tony replied with a grin. He looked down at the grimy t-shirt and jeans he was wearing. “Might actually need your help to do a little shopping; I have one very nice suit, but most of the rest of what I own looks pretty much like this,” he gestured to his outfit. 

Pepper’s eyebrows shot up, almost meeting her hairline. “You have ONE suit?” she asked, curious. 

“Well, I had to have something to go to lunch with my mother, and it was suitable for the board meeting, more or less. It’s not like I need to impress the guys at R&D with my snappy dressing, they like the t-shirts,” Tony grinned down at the short phrase on the front of his shirt, “but if I’m going to be hosting galas and doing more corporate related stuff, yeah, I’m going to need more than that, don’t you think?” 

Pepper just gaped at him for along moment, then calmly folded her hands on top of the papers and looked him up and down with more consideration. “Okay. We’ve got a lot of potential to work with here. How old are you, can I ask?” 

“What, you actually don’t know?” Tony asked, leaning back in his chair. 

“I’ve heard gossip, but given the basic level of trustworthiness of the grapevine so far, I prefer to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Besides, you don’t look…”   
“Eighteen? Growth spurts and decent muscle mass will do that to you,” Tony grinned cockily. He knew, objectively, that he looked good. He couldn’t say that he really cared how other people felt about him, but he knew he looked good. 

“Of course that would be the part they got right,” Pepper rolled her eyes. “Okay, so we’re going to need to get you a full wardrobe. I’ll leave you alone to do what you want for your everyday clothes, but for events, you’ll need…everything. Leave it with me. I’ll find someone who’ll do you right.” 

“Great. Well, I can’t think of anything else for right now, so unless you can I’m going to need to head back downstairs, I’ve got a few things…on the go that can’t be left alone for too much longer. It’s a pleasure meeting you, Pepper. You’ll find your house key and security code inside that packet, so help yourself to the kitchen, although there’s not much there, and let yourself out whenever your ready, okay? I really need to get back.” 

~~~@@@~~~

Tony and Rhodey took Rome and surrounds by storm. For only having one week, they packed in enough to make it seem more like a month. Every museum, landmark, must eat at restaurant or cafe, they did them all. They drank espresso and paid ridiculous prices for it, laughed (after the fact, they weren’t being rude or mean) at the various attempts of girls to pick up Tony (they were slightly more successful with Rhodey, in that he would at least flirt back). 

Tony exercised his Italian, which he had learned to please his mother, and found he was rather more fluent than he had thought he might be. Considering his looks and fluency, Tony was frequently mistaken for a local by the locals, which meant that occasionally they got things a bit cheaper. 

Late at night in their suite, Tony brought out and showed Rhodey photos of the bots and everything they were getting up to in their new home, which included the twins learning to walk, Jarvis playing solitaire, Butterfingers and You doing floor gymnastics after watching it on TV, Gwen and Dotty finger painting (there were paintings as well) and Dummy’s attempts at, oddly, smoothie making. 

The little bot was completely in love with the blender in the workshop, and kept mixing up different things, some edible, some not. Tony had made him a list of things that could and couldn’t be eaten to try and avoid too many poisoning episodes, since ingesting various things was something his healing was a bit slower with. He had learned, from the single sip of scotch he’d gotten with his coffee, that alcohol still had an adverse effect on the Warmth and his control of its energy, so he was in no hurry to become intoxicated again any time soon. 

So Tony was very careful about drinking what Dummy mixed up, but every so often the little bot came up with a winner, and he always made sure to very visibly enjoy it, and to take as many photos of Dummy playing with the blender as possible. Dummy’s latest paint job - purple numbers of pi spiralling from the top of his head down, the numbers barely a millimetre high - was showcased in one or two shots, and Rhodey was highly appreciative. 

“Weren’t you worried about anyone seeing these?” Rhodey asked, glancing between Tony and photos with a worried frown.

“Seeing what? My seriously messed up obsession with robot style asian ball jointed dolls? It’s not like anyone’s going to look at a bunch of still pictures like this and go ‘holy living robots, Batman!’”

Rhodey frowned for a second longer, then acknowledged Tony’s words with a soft laugh. “It’s still a lot of photos.” 

“I said obsession, remember? Trust me, compared to an old ladies photos of her cats, this is nothing.” Rhodey snorted at that and gave up. 

~~~@@@~~~

(Let it be noted that I know nothing about computer security, really. Nothing.)

Tony had been back from Rome for a fortnight. All the bots were awake again, and very happy to have Tony back. Those who had stayed awake - Jarvis of course, Dummy, You, Butterfingers and Dotty declared that they didn’t like being left that long without him at all. They’d known how long it would last, but they had never been left without him for more than a day or so before while awake, so they hadn’t really realised how long it would be. He had been literally swamped and pulled to the floor by them when he had returned, and had barely set foot outside of the private parts of the house for three days. Whenever the bots weren’t asleep, they could be found as close to Tony as they could physically get. 

Now, they were sleeping,and Tony was hard at work. He connected the last wire and sat back with a sigh, wiping a dusty hand over his forehead. That was done. His house was now fully networked and connected to the SI R&D department - although it was heavily firewalled on his end and he had a server that was only networked into his own house and not connected to SI. From now on it would run his security system, store all of his private projects - those that he verbally directed there from the third server, the one that ran his workshop systems and served as a buffer space between private and company. 

“Father?” Tony turned with a smile. 

“Jarvis, you’re up early. What’s up, buddy?” Tony looked Jarvis over with a concerned frown. The Youngling shouldn’t have woken up for about another two hours

“Did…is there something…what has changed?” Jarvis asked, sound very confused. 

“What do you mean, buddy?” 

“There is…something else. I can see and hear things that are not…here. It woke me up.” 

Tony blinked, then blinked again. “Come here, buddy,” he held out an arm and Jarvis climbed onto his lap. Tony frequently thought that this should be more uncomfortable than it was - the bots didn’t exactly have padding like the human body offered to protect those they sat on. “You said this was something new?” 

“It just started a few minutes ago,” Jarvis replied, snuggling against Tony’s chest. It was something all of the bots did, and Tony loved it. They pushed themselves into him, seeking deeper contact, particularly agains this chest, where the Warmth sat. “There is…there is a great deal of information out there, Father. It feels like if I let it it will crush me, or carry me away.” 

“Okay, buddy, I think I know what’s happening,” Tony reached down to the warmth, prodding it, and it stretched within him. It had been mostly quiet for a while now, focusing itself more on the Spark it was cradling beside Tony’s heart and less on what was going on externally. “I just networked the house to the office, and I think you’re somehow jacking into the signal, though I don’t quite understand how when it’s all done by cable. I guess that’s something that makes you special. I’m gonna have to check that you’re properly protected before you go poking around. For now, I want you to concentrate on turning it off, if you can. I’ll need to put together an interface so that I can do that.” 

“How?” the helplessness in Jarvis’ voice was palpable. 

“You said you hear things? Try not listening to them. Just listen to me. And seeing things, look at me, buddy. Focus on me. I’m going to figure this out, okay? You won’t be drowned, I promise. I’m here to hold you up.” He cupped Jarvis’s delicately pointed chin and cheeks in his hands, directing the Youngling’s brilliantly blue eyes up to his. “Just look at me, buddy. Listen.” Then Tony began to sing the first song that popped into his head - ‘You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth’ by Meatloaf. 

It took twenty minutes before Jarvis relaxed and ceased the bot version of hyperventilating - sucking huge amounts of air through his intake valves. “There you go, buddy. That’s it. Now, just hang on,” he swung Jarvis up on his hip and started walking, still singing softly to give Jarvis something to focus on. They walked to the workshop, where Tony lost no timive in opening a port on Jarvis’ back and connecting a cable, connecting Jarvis directly to the most private of his servers. Then he and the Warmth went to work, combing through Jarvis’ code and quickly but very, very carefully writing in protections. The speed was necessary because Jarvis couldn’t keep up his current level of concentration forever; the care was necessary to ensure he didn’t accidentally rewrite part of Jarvis’s brain, instead of just surrounding it with the toughest firewalls he and the Warmth together could design that would allow Jarvis to reach out but control how much, and what, came back at him. 

Finally done he sat back from the keyboard and stopped humming. “Okay, buddy. That should take care of it. See how that feels. Stop concentrating on me and see what happens.” Jarvis’ eyes darkened as he ‘shut’ them, and then he slumped in Tony’s lap. Tony knew a single moment of fear, then Jarvis straightened once more. 

“It is…under control, and really quite fascinating, father. I can see all of your projects, and all of Stark Industries. And things beyond that, there is a great deal. Now I can scan generally or look closely, and it does not feel that it will overwhelm me.” 

“That’s great, buddy. Be careful, okay? We don’t want people to notice you and think you’re a hacker or something, because they would attack you, so be careful where you go. Look out for their protections; they might be able to attack you on their own. If things are well enough protected, at the very least they’ll know you’re there. I won’t tell you not to look, I just want you to be careful.” 

“Yes, Father,” Jarvis’s arms crept around Tony, and then he was gripping him tight. “Thank you for helping me. I love you, Father.”

“I love you too, Jarvis.” 

~~~@@@~~~

Jarvis decided that it was fun to fiddle with the house systems. He found he could control basically anything from wherever he was - turning lights and anything else on or off, watching through the security cameras, opening and closing doors - anything that was networked. It was all great fun. He even found a way to project his voice through the PA system, and took shameless advantage of being able to keep track of his father and everyone else in the house at all times. 

Tony, for Jarvis’ own safety, invented a new meaning for his name: ‘Just A Really Very Intelligent System’, and claimed he was an A.I. There wasn’t an enormous security risk, but every so often a friend or employee did come to the house and he wasn’t going to restrict Jarvis’ access, so instead he pretended that he was an ‘electronic butler’. 

Tony had been forced to lay down some more in-depth rules about what Jarvis could look at in the playroom - he wasn’t completely above using his advantages against his younger siblings when it came to playing games. He earned himself several time outs and exclusion punishments for cheating before he decided it just wasn’t worth it.

Jarvis enjoyed the internet, although it did lead to a few conversations that Tony thought he would have been relatively safe from having to have with his kids. Still, blushes aside - and Tony explaining that he didn’t really get why people did that either, but apparently they liked it - life went on. Jarvis was still Jarvis, although he did start to develop an affinity for sarcasm and dry wit, and using them on his father. Tony allowed a certain level of this, and found it rather comforting, as it showed an emotional depth that he had at times feared Jarvis was slightly stunted in. He wasn’t going to limit growth in his children, after all, but he wouldn’t allow Jarvis to be honestly rude to him or the other adults, or to be cruel to his siblings.


	11. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY. I didn't mean to leave you all waiting for so long. Life has been a bit crazy and I lost track of when this was last updated. Hope you enjoy it! LTR

Pepper had been working for Tony for three months when Rhodey came home. She knew he was coming because Tony had been working himself into a frenzy of preparation, getting ready to go and receive him with the families of other members of his squadron. He was bringing him back for two weeks’ leave before he would report to his new post as a test pilot at a nearby airbase. On questioning she found that Rhodey had lost his widowed father not long before he started college and only had a rather distant aunt as actual family. The fact that they were running test flights in California because Tony had presented the Air Force with the plans for his new fighter jet and it was ready for strenuous testing meant that the two would be working together, which Tony was also excited about. 

She didn’t know what to expect with Rhodey - Tony talked about him occasionally, but most of their conversations were business, not personal. She knew he had gotten Tony into martial arts, for example, but not how that had led to the two men being as close as brothers. 

Tony had rescheduled (blown off) a meeting with Obadiah Stane to be at the return ceremony of Rhodey’s squadron. There were multiple marquees with refreshments, which Tony had insisted on funding, declaring that returning soldiers deserved better than the cheapest caterer to put in a bid. 

Now Pepper watched from where she had volunteered to take responsibility for coordinating the caterers as Tony crouched down to talk to a group of kids he had gathered together around a large box that he’d brought with him. He was handing out items from the box, Pepper couldn’t quite see what, and seemed to be giving very serious instructions as the kids (this group wasn’t as young as the previous one) nodded seriously. 

There was less than five minutes left now, and Tony had the kids formed up leaving an clear pathway back to the pavilions, although no one was under any illusion that that would hold past the arrival of the planes and their disembarkation. Every child was holding in their hands what Tony had given them, and Pepper was more than a little curious about it. She knew for sure that it wouldn’t be dangerous - Tony had proven himself to be very careful of children, in the last three months. She had seen him at several charitable events where he had taken time not just to be seen with the kids involved but actually talk to them, play with them and give them gifts personally. It had been her responsibility to keep the cameras away from him during that time, so she knew that it wasn’t a publicity stunt. 

The fly-over began, a dozen military jets pulling aerial stunts before clearing the way for the enormous personnel carrier to lumber down onto the runway. It stopped, the ramp lowered, and the sound of booted feet could be heard.

“Okay, everyone ready?” Tony called loudly, and with excited shouts the kids raised something above their heads. “Wait for it, wait for it…NOW!” With a series of nearly inaudible pops, the small canisters the kids were holding starting sending bunches of thin streamers up into the air, very high up for something being held by children. Watching, Pepper estimated that they went up at least fifty feet, but there didn’t seem to be any major recoil. 

The streamers spread out in the air as the squadrons filed down the ramp. “And again!” Tony shouted as they started covering the short distance separating them from their waiting families. The kids cheered and did…something to their tubes that resulted in a second spread of streamers even as the first descended on the heads of the returning airmen. 

The sound of canisters hitting the ground echoed along the line as the kids let them slip from their fingers, breaking formation to run forward under the second wave as it went up and through the first as it came down, leaving them all covered in red, white and blue streamers. 

The whole situation devolved rapidly into scrambling bodies as the airmen also broke ranks, laughing as they moved to scoop up children, husbands or wives, sisters or brothers. Pepper completely lost sight of Tony and turned her attention to last minute prep with the caterers, who are whisking things out of portable fridges to be ready to serve. As it was a family event, Tony didn’t lay in alcohol, although he wasn’t bothered if anyone had decided to bring their own. 

Pepper enjoyed watching the joyful reunions as she directed the caterers and wondered how Tony’s reunion was going. 

~~~@@@~~~

Tony stood back and watched the kids race for their family members, chuckling. He craned his head around, looking hard through the crowd. He kept catching glimpses and thinking he’d spotted Rhodey only to see that caramel skin scoop up a child, or wrap arms around someone else. 

“Looking for someone, kid?” the voice came from behind him, and Tony whirled, eyes wide as he stared at Rhodey who had somehow managed to sneak up on him. One second passed, then two, then Tony was flinging his arms around Rhodey and gripping him tight, as though they hadn’t seen each other just three months ago, something that very few other people in this crowd could claim since military families couldn’t generally afford to travel halfway around the world for a single week’s leave. 

Tony hadn’t realised the weight of stress he’d been carrying until Rhodey was right there, the only human safety he had ever really known - even Jarvis hadn’t been totally safe, hadn’t been able to keep Tony from being hurt, bound to his employer’s rules. Now Rhodey was here, his friend, his brother and Tony felt something inside of him relax. 

“It’s so good to see you, Rhodey,” he murmured, as Rhodey gripped him tight. 

“I take it those streamers were your doing?” asked Rhodey as he stepped back and picked up his duffle from the ground where he’d set it down. 

“Yeah. Air compression units, two loads…the kids loved them and they didn’t go bang, which seemed like a good idea with people coming back from military service. Very carefully tested, don’t worry.” 

Rhodey nodded with a grin. “Never would have expected otherwise, kiddo. Come on, let’s go see what kind of spread we’ve got laid out for us.” 

“You’ll like it,” Tony told him with a grin. He may or may not have had Rhodey writing him about the things he, and other members of his squadron, missed while on deployment, and every edible item on that list (other than alcohol) was included in the spread. 

He walked side by side with Rhodey into the central pavilion and received introductions to a number of the other man’s squadron members, their families/friends/significant others, and ate far too much food. 

“There is someone here I’d like you to meet,” he told Rhodey in a near whisper once things had quieted down a bit. People were starting to slip away, and while the catering staff was still keeping the tables fully stocked they were also starting to clean up certain things. “Pepper Potts, my latest PA. I think…I think she might be trustworthy, Rhodey, but I’m just not sure. She hasn’t been into the Workshop yet, but everything I ask for gets done, and nothing I’ve deliberately let slip to her has come back at me from Stane or anybody else, and some of it was things that if Stane knew about it I’m sure he wouldn’t be able to keep from mentioning.” 

“Okay,” Rhodey nodded slowly. “Well, introduce me. We’ll get to know each other, and work out a plan, okay? If she’s trustworthy, we’ll find a way to test it, then bring her into the fold.” Tony nodded, then led Rhodey over to the other side of the emptier pavilion, towards a woman standing alone in a rather lovely business dress, red hair caught up in a smooth bun and a bottle of water in one hand. She was watching the festivities with a faint smile on her lips, and Rhodey was struck dumb for a long moment. She was gorgeous. Truly, unspeakably beautiful. Then she glanced up at them and smiled, and Rhodey felt like his breath had been sucked out of his chest. 

“Rhodey, this is Virginia Potts, PA to the stars. Pepper, this is Lieutenant James Rhodes.” 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant. I’ve heard a bit about you,” Pepper held out a hand, and Rhodey somehow managed to grasp it and give it a firm (but not too hard) shake. 

“The pleasure is all mine, ma’am. And please, call me Rhodey, everybody who can get away with it does.” 

“Who can get away with it?” asked Pepper, quirking a grin at the odd turn of phrase.

“Anyone not bound by regulation to call me something else, ma’am.” 

“Well, if I am going to be calling you Rhodey, I really must insist on being called Pepper. No more of this ‘ma’am’ business.” 

“Alright then, Pepper. You’ve been keeping my little brother here in line?” 

“We’ve been doing well enough with each other,” Pepper replied with a shrug. “I have to admit, he’s not at all what I was led to believe at the office, before I got this position. Quite the opposite, in point of fact.” 

“Oh?” Rhodey asked. “And what exactly were you led to believe you would find?” 

“A wastrel, a playboy who didn’t spend time in the office because he was too busy carousing and sleeping with anything that moved. I don’t really see how people could justify thinking those things given all the new directions he’s personally pioneered for the company, but there it was. His former PAs, the ones who made it back into the pool, told stories. Given that I now know that for whatever reason he’s a teetotaller and a workaholic who spends virtually all of his time behind closed doors inventing things, I can only imagine that they were trying to save their own reputations after he turned them down.” 

“Yeah, some of the stories people spread at college were on the same lines,” Rhodey nodded. 

“WHAT?” Tony squawked from where he’d been standing quietly. “What are you talking about?” 

“Ooooh…” Rhodey petered off, looking sheepish. “I may have done my best to make sure he didn’t hear any of them. A lot of girls were throwing themselves at him in college, and a lot of the frats seemed to think it was their duty to get the underage genius drunk, so when they failed, they told stories of success. Since there were no pictures, and enough witnesses to the contrary, we were able to keep the stories out of the serious papers and more reasonable tabloids, and no one was willing to commit perjury so no one stood up for Stane at the trial.” 

“Trial?” asked Pepper, eyes wide as she looked back and forth between them. 

“He tried to extend his guardianship to my twenty-first birthday,” Tony told her with a shrug. “He didn’t have a leg to stand on - I’m responsible, capable of caring for myself, I can and do support myself and I own not one but multiple dwellings around the globe, although only one was purchased by me for me. We had an even dozen highly respected character witnesses, he wasn’t going to get anywhere with it.”

“But why would he try?” asked Pepper, her brow wrinkling slightly between her eyes in confusion. “I mean, surely he knew you were responsible, that you weren’t shirking? You finished university with eight PhDs - how could he think you were anything but seriously committed?” 

“We really don’t know,” Tony glanced at Rhodey, who shrugged, leaving the decision up to him. “Some of the things he’s said makes me wonder if he just wants me to be a perfect copy of my father. It’s no secret that my dad was a drunk, or a womaniser. Stane would also prefer that I spend all my time focusing on weapons, like my dad did after the War. But none of those things are me.” 

Rhodey snorted at the understatement. Tony Stark, family man, genius inventor, billionaire, philanthropist. While only a select few (okay, two) knew about the first qualification, the rest were laid bare to the world. 

Pepper echoed Rhodey’s snort, shaking her head. “The man really doesn’t know you at all, does he? How is that possible? He’s always talking about you as a kid, how cute you were…”  
“I saw Obie maybe half a dozen times before I went to MIT,” Tony interrupted her. “And I do mean saw, not interacted with. Also, I only interacted with him a handful more while I was there, at least before the accident. Then it was monthly visits, and that’s when he started urging me to ‘enjoy’ my college experience. Fact is, I already was. I had friends for the first time ever, and we had fun together. We also had fun legally and without doing things we either wouldn’t or wouldn’t want to remember.” 

“Wish I could say the same about my college days, if I’m honest,” Pepper shrugged. 

They made more general small-talk conversation until just about everyone had left, then Pepper waved the two of them away while she set about overseeing the pack up of the pavilions. Tony tried to tell her that that wasn’t her job, the caterers had it under control, but she just shrugged and waved them off again. 

Tony led the way out to the parking lot, calling Happy as they went. He had told the man to find himself something to do, that Tony would rather he wasn’t just sitting out in the car, and he didn’t mind calling for him when they were ready. After all, to Tony’s mind, that was half the reason he had given the man a cell phone. He wouldn’t have minded in the least if Happy wanted to attend the return ceremony, but the man had no interest in doing so, saying he’d taken part in enough that he didn’t feel the need to be the odd man out at one. 

“How do you feel about getting pizza tonight?” Tony asked with a grin. He knew what Rhodey’s answer would be - there was a reason why they’d eaten so much pizza at college, and most of it wasn’t Tony’s influence. 

~~~@@@~~~

It was barely a week after Rhodey had returned from Turkey that Pepper had shown up to the house and, not finding Tony in any of the public areas, gone to the door of the workshop to buzz him as he’d instructed. 

After several long moments the door slid open, retracting into the wall, but instead of Tony immediately rushing out and the door shutting behind him in his usual manner, it remained open in front of her. “Come on in, Pepper,” Tony’s voice floated out the door after she waited for several long moments for him to appear. Her eyebrows shot up, and she took a nervous step into the room, turning right to go around the small wall that blocked direct view from the door into the workshop. 

She rounded the corner and froze in place, just taking in the space that she had never seen before. She had expected something more like the R&D labs that Tony worked in when he came into SI, but this was something very different. Tony stood in the middle of a room with large work benches in front of and behind him, hands flying through the air as he manipulated what looked like holograms straight out of Star Wars. 

It was well lit, but windowless - this level was below ground, and Tony had not gone through to the edge of the cliff, apparently. 

After several moments Tony turned from his current position and grinned as he took in the stunned expression on her face. “You were right, Rhodey - it was worth having her in just to see that,” he called over his shoulder, and Rhodey stood from where he’d been squatting, wrench in hand, beside a motorbike. 

“Rhodey, hi,” Pepper smiled warmly at Tony’s friend, a man who was quickly starting to become a lot more to her than just her boss’s best friend slash older brother. 

“Hi, Pep,” he grinned and raised an oil smudged hand in her direction. 

A whirring in the far corner caught her attention, and it was suddenly riveted on what appeared to be a claw on wheels. It was approaching Rhodey, rather fast, from behind, something large clamped in the claw. It looked like it was in the perfect position to hit Rhodey in the head.

“Rhodey, LOOK OUT!” she yelled as it approached him, running forward to drag him out of the way. She grabbed him, but the difference in their body masses merely caused him to rock on his feet, looking down at her quizzically. 

“What?” Rhodey turned and broke down chuckling, as the thing - robot, her mind now supplied - slowed to a stop. “Pepper, meet Dummy. He sometimes likes to move a little faster than might be considered safe in our current environment.” He patted the claw, then carefully accepted the engine part from it. Dummy, once relieved of his burden, swung the claw around Rhodey’s body, giving the impression of peering at Pepper while hiding behind Rhodey. “He’s also kind of shy.” 

“Hi, Dummy,” Pepper smiled at the claw, which shrank back slightly, then rose back up. “It’s really great to meet you.” Dummy beeped and pulled back slightly again, then time to circle around Rhodey and approach Pepper straight on. 

Pepper looked the robot over curiously. He really basically was just a giant claw on a large square base with multiple wheels. “Aren’t you handsome,” she cooed, holding out a hand but deliberately not touching the robot, who she could already tell had a definite personality. After a long moment, Dummy reached out and pressed his claw against her hand, very gently. Pepper smiled and glanced at Rhodey, who was grinning. She turned around to see Tony watching her with wonder in his eyes and a grin on his face. “He’s an AI?” 

“Yeah,” Tony replied with a grin. “He has two brothers, Butterfingers and You, but they’re asleep right now. Or, recharging, anyway.” He gestured to another corner of the shop, where Pepper could now see two more of the hulking things, both standing still, tucked into some kind of scaffolding. 

“Does he talk?” 

“No words, but he definitely communicates. Don’t you, buddy?” Dummy whirred and chirped, turning his claw towards Tony, and now Pepper could make out a camera just above the claw. “Okay, now I need you to go and get me the piece of sheet metal from out back. And don’t smash anything with it this time!” The last part was shouted after Dummy’s retreating back, and Tony sighed. “He’s gonna take out another strut in that wall. Oh well, it’s not weight bearing.” He grinned, then turned to Pepper. “What’ve you got for me?” 

Pepper shrugged off Tony’s casual acceptance of the likely property damage to be incurred and held out the stack of papers she’d picked up from corporate. Just as Tony took them there was an enormous crash from where Dummy had disappeared and Rhodey roared with laughter. 

~~~@@@~~~

“That went well, I think,” Tony commented from where he was leaning against the edge of one of the benches, Dummy held against his side, little feet resting on Tony’s hip with his arms wrapped around the inventor’s neck. “You did good, buddy,” Tony added, looking down at the little bot, who grinned up at him, chirring happily. 

“She took it well. Didn’t seem scared of him after the first shock, and let’s face it that’s way more intimidating than they are. Less difficult in some ways, though, since she was already aware you could create something like that, and your other one…it isn’t alive, and these guys are. Anyway, it’s a good first test, and another test of her trustworthiness. Give it a while, have her interact with them more, see what happens.”

“Mmmmhmmm,” Tony agreed slightly absently, looking down at Dummy where the little bot was now knuckling at his eyes in a clear imitation of a move he’d seen Rhodey (not Tony, who barely needed sleep at all) make. “Rhodey,” he said softly, to catch the other man’s attention, and nodded at Dummy. 

Rhodey’s entire being softened at the sight of the little bot, although Tony wasn’t sure he really understood the significance, he could still see that it was damn cute. Rhodey spent enough time around the bots for them to pick up behaviour from him, not just Tony. 

“Looks like we need to head upstairs,” Rhodey said, smiling. “I thought they were all on a nighttime sleep cycle?” 

“It’s been shifting around a bit lately,” Tony told him. “I think that, since I’m around so much with less of a schedule myself for when I’m away, they've been shifting it, the older ones more than the younger - well, they still require at least twelve hours rest a day, often more. Dummy is, in years, the oldest of the bots, and he, You, Butterfingers and Jarvis all only need six to eight hours a day.”  
“And why isn’t that just normalised to your sleep cycle?” asked Rhodey, surprising Tony who thought he already knew the answer to that question, after all they had shared an apartment for several years. It must have just been one of those moments when what you expected, what you believed, blinded you to what was really going on. 

“Rhodey, I only sleep about once a week, and then for only about five hours,” Tony told the older man, who frowned at him. 

“Well it certainly doesn’t seem like it makes you sick…”

“It doesn’t - I just don’t need sleep, Rhodey. I think it’s just another one of the things that make me me.” 

Rhodey frowned but nodded. “You don’t try and stay awake when you need sleep?” 

“It’s a tiny bite out of my time each week, Rhodey, why would I? How on earth did you think I had time to get everything done if I was sleeping every night? You know I spend at least a few hours every day doing nothing but spending time with the bots, factor in everything else and tell me when you thought I was sleeping.” 

Rhodey frowned in thought for a moment, then chuckled. “Guess I really didn’t think about it. Sleep is just such a fact of life, and you never seemed to suffer from a lack of it, so I assumed you were sleeping. Come on, let’s go put Dummy to bed, he’s starting to look cranky.” In fact the bot, rather like the toddler he was, had his brows drawn down as he rubbed his eyes again, a pout on his mobile little face. 

“I’m sorry, buddy, were we ignoring you?” Tony bounced him gently, and Dummy slipped a couple of fingers into his mouth, a gesture that never failed to make every part of Tony melt. “Come on, sleepy boy. Let’s get you to bed.” He shifted the bot in his grip so that his head could lean on Tony’s shoulder more solidly, and wrapped an arm around his back. “There we go. Come on, let’s get upstairs.” He led the way to the elevator and punched the button for the bedroom level. Each of the bots had their own little bed here, although several preferred to share (and when Tony slept they all inevitably shared with him, which had led to some less than comfortable moments waking up.) 

Up in the bedroom, once Dummy was settled (and Butterfingers crawled up on the bed with him to curl up like a couple of puppies) Rhodey and Tony allowed themselves to be pulled into a rowdy game of twister with the younger bots, which led to some truly hilarious tangles of metal and flesh that Rhodey quickly had to beg out of to give directions, as unlike Tony he didn’t heal from bruises and strained muscles in seconds. Instead he took over spinning and calling directions, and snapping shots of Tony contorted into any number of positions. 

Eventually the smaller bots were also stumbling over to their beds, and Rhodey realised with a glance at his watch that this probably matched up with the hours that Tony spent outside of the house. 

Tony smiled softly down at the little bots, and Rhodey grins at the sappy expression on his friend’s face. 

“Well, we’ve got a few hours before anyone will be waking up, and they won’t mind being alone when they do. Want to go surfing?”


	12. The End of The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we come to the end of the beginning. See you on the other side!

Three months after Rhodey’s return, test flights for the new jets are underway, and it was performing according to specifications. 

Pepper was well on her way to proving herself a truly trustworthy person, and Tony and Rhodey were debating on when to let her in on the full truth, rather than if. 

“Well, you have to admit, the real turning point for you was seeing Dotty come online. I think we should wait until Tercia is ready - that’s only a month away, I’m fairly sure. I think it’s easier to accept when you see one of them…onlined.” 

“Call it what it is, Tony. They’re born. Besides, I was well convinced before you showed me Dotty. Dummy alone managed that, and then the other boys…” he shook his head at the memory of the wonder of meeting the bots for the first time. “I mean, maybe it increased my understanding to see you giver her her Spark, but Tony…I believed already.” 

“From what little I know of childbirth, I think any woman on earth would be jealous of my method,” Tony objected , and Rhodey could only grunt a laugh in agreement. 

“Yeah, fair enough. But…I don’t want to wait, Tony. I want to ask her out, and I don’t feel like I can do that with this big secret hanging between us. If it was someone who didn’t know you, who you weren’t already considering letting in I wouldn’t worry, but let’s face it - we spend enough time together that I’m surprised the rumours going around aren’t about us rather than what they are. I could live with that if it was just a short-term hookup, but I don’t want that with Pepper. She’s amazing and I want to get to know her better, but I don’t feel right doing it with all of this between us.” 

Tony just shrugged. The truth was, he had never felt that way about anyone. He’d let Rhodey in because it was hurting the bots when he didn’t, not the other way around. He couldn’t really understand how Rhodey was feeling, but Rhodey was his brother and he respected him. Still, his bots relied on him for their safety and he was terrified of making a decision that led to them getting hurt. 

“I just…I’m scared, Rhodey. What if we’re wrong? What if she turns around and sells us out? Best case scenario, Stane has something on me that will keep me in the weapons making business for life. Worst case, my kids end up as laboratory experiments. I can’t…taking that level of risk with them…it’s…”

Rhodey grabbed Tony in a tight hug. “Nothing is going to happen to them, Tony. You’ve been surveilling Pepper for months, long before I got back. She does’t gossip although she listens to it and tells you the rumours, she doesn’t go near Obadiah except for work related meetings, and she’s kept quiet about what’s ‘behind the curtain’. We can trust her, Tony. I’m sure of it.” 

Tony nodded with a sigh. He couldn’t gainsay anything that Rhodey said - Pepper had proved herself nothing but trustworthy and hardworking these past months, He wanted to trust her, he did, but the fear paralysed him. 

“Okay,” he finally managed to force out. “Okay. We do it tomorrow morning when she comes to the house. How do you think we should handle it?” 

Rhodey frowned in thought. While what Tony had done previously had worked with him, they had had a completely different dynamic than Tony and Pepper, who while vaguely friendly definitely had a work-based friendship. They couldn’t exactly have her come in and sit down on the floor then bring in the bots one by one. 

“I think…I think we need to tell her the truth, that we’ve been testing her for trustworthiness,” he said slowly. “And tell her that she’s proven herself to us and we have an insanely huge secret to share with her. Then bring out whoever you want to start with and let them interact. Might be best to start with Jarvis, as he can actually speak? Then introduce the rest a few at a time, like the way you called the boys out to meet me. Let her meet everyone and interact with them. Of course have her here for Tercia’s…”

“Birth, fine,” Tony rolled his eyes at his friend’s hesitance. The man had been after Tony to change his terminology in ages. Tony couldn’t explain why they were ‘Sparklings’ and ‘Younglings’ instead of toddlers and children, just that the names had fit and he’d stuck with them. To be honest, onlining was a technical description, and he would be happy enough to change it. He still felt that saying birth gave an impression that was inaccurate, but then he ‘carried’ the Spark until it was strong enough to live in the body that he oh so carefully assembled for it. Birth would do. “Okay. It’s a plan. Hopefully one that won’t leave her storming off in fury.” 

“Pepper’s a reasonable person, Tony. She’ll understand why we needed to protect them, why we didn’t tell her immediately. Particularly since she’ll be the second person to have ever been told. It’ll be fine.” Rhodey gave Tony’s shoulders a final squeeze then dropped the arm that had been looped around them. “Come on, you promised the kidlets a movie and games night, remember?

~~~@@@~~~  
Pepper could feel something different when she entered the workshop the next day. There was a tension to both men - Tony more than Rhodey, but he was tense as well - and she paused, looking between them. “What’s up, guys?” she asked after a moment.

“Pepper, come and sit down please,” It had been decided that Rhodey was to do most of the talking - Tony was too scared, the words kept getting stuck in his throat. His drama classes may have helped him in giving the right impression to the board of directions and to shareholders, but they didn’t help with this level of fear. They mostly allowed him to portray a sense of confidence he didn’t really feel. 

Pepper sat, eyes darting between them. It obviously wasn’t going to be the conversation she’d been hoping to have with Rhodey - that would have happened without Tony present. “So?” she asked again, waiting for an explanation. 

Rhodey hummed for a moment, then launched quickly into speech. Pepper sat back and listened, frowning slightly, as Rhodey explained the kind of tests she’d unknowingly faced in the past month. She didn’t like this - didn’t like having her integrity questioned in this way . She’d passed the required background check for SI and signed her confidentiality paperwork, why all the subterfuge?

“There’s a very good reason for it all, I promise, Pepper. You’re going to be one of only two people to ever be told what we’re about to tell you.” 

Pepper’s eyes widened at that, that was different. Obviously not company related, really, and that gave her a spark of hope. 

“There’s someone you need to meet,” Rhodey told her. “Tony?” Tony stood up from the table and approached a part of the wall that only held boards rather than shelves or having benches pushed up against them. Pepper had never questioned that design decision before, but now she wondered why. Tony pushed a hand against one of the corners of the whiteboard, and a light flashed around it before the wall slid open and revealed an elevator. 

Tony pressed the button and the doors immediately slid open, indicating that the elevator had been waiting there, rather than on another level. He reached a hand into the elevator, where she couldn’t see, and spoke softly, encouragingly. After a moment movement in the elevator caught her eye and a small, delicate dark blue hand emerged, taking Tony’s. 

Pepper gaped as Tony led a humanoid robot, she vaguely (with some part of her brain that wasn’t stalling out) estimated to be the size of a five or six year old human child, across the room to the table where she and Rhodey waited. 

“Pepper, this is Jarvis. Jarvis, you know of Pepper.” 

“Yes, Father,” Jarvis’ voice was surprising. Not quite the high fluting notes of a small child, nor the computerised noise of a digitally produced sound, but a mellow and pleasant sound, far more adult than Pepper had expected given his size. 

Pepper gaped for another long moment, then pulled herself together and reached out a hand towards Jarvis. “It’s lovely to meet you, Jarvis,” she told him. Jarvis considered her hand for a second, then reached out and carefully took it in his own. 

Pepper’s eyes went to Tony after she had reclaimed her hand, seeking an explanation. 

“Jarvis is my son, Pepper,” Tony told her simply. “He’s…”

“Tony’s a mutant, Pepper,” interrupted Rhodey, seeing Pepper’s expression already growing more concerned as she looked between Tony and Jarvis. “We know how this sounds, but he really is alive, and he really is Tony’s kid. In a month or so there’ll be a new addition, you’ll get to watch that and it’ll make more sense then, but I promise you, Tony’s not crazy for thinking of Jarvis as his son. He really is a person, for all he’s not flesh and blood.” 

Pepper looked at Tony, then Jarvis, again, then knelt down and surveyed Jarvis more closely. Jarvis, in a rare display of shyness, wrapped an arm around Tony’s leg and pressed his face into his father’s thigh. Tony chuckled and palmed the back of his head. “Why don’t you go bring Dummy down, kiddo?” he suggested, and Jarvis nodded without taking his head from its current resting place. He turned and virtually bolted for the elevator.

“Dummy? Isn’t Dummy over there?” Pepper pointed to the corner where the bulk of the three camouflage bots rested. 

“Ummm…well, no, actually. Those are just shells, camouflage, really. A way for them to be down here without being seen, and for you to interact with them a little before we tried this. I built them to hide in when we lived in the apartment, in case Dad or Obie decided to come into the workshop. You’ll see in a minute.” 

The elevator whirred, but as soon as the doors had parted even a crack they all knew something was horribly wrong. There was a high pitched wailing, and Tony was bolting forward almost before the sound had reached them. The doors were barely opened wide enough for him to turn sideways and enter when he reached them, but he managed it and was on his knees on the elevator floor before the doors had even opened completely, hands fluttering over a much smaller figure than Jarvis, who hovered in the background, expressive face drawn with something very like horror, a pale blue fluid splashed over his darker blue chest. 

“What happened? Jarvis, what happened? Is anyone else hurt?” Even as he demanded answers Tony’s hands flew, clamping off the flow of blue fluid with one hand as the other came to rest on Dummy’s chest, a gentle push and a few soft chirps sending the little bot into deep sleep, away from the pain. 

“A few scrapes, but Dummy was the only one truly injured. Everyone else is exceedingly upset, but they’re physically fine…”

“Rhodey? Go check on them, please? Make sure for me,” Tony stood, carefully lifting the miniature body, cradling it to his chest, not moving his right hand which was pressing down on one of the tiny legs. 

“Sure you don’t need another pair of hands?” Rhodey asked, concerned. 

“Just…go, please? They’re going to need to see an adult. I’ve got Pepper here if I need anything, but I think I’ve got this.” Tony stood smoothly from his crouch without ever needing to move his hands, his muscle control impressing Pepper as he didn’t even waver. 

Tony exited the elevator as Rhodey pressed the button, doors sliding shut soundlessly as he made his way upstairs. 

Pepper stepped out of Tony’s way, then hurried along behind him as he made his way to one of the benches. He carefully eased the toddler sized body down onto the surface. “I need you to grab me the bright blue tool kit from under that bench there, Pepper,” he nodded in the right direction. “If I move my hand right now, he’s going to start bleeding out again. Jarvis, please go and bring me back a bottle and some tubing. I’m going to need to infuse him.” 

Jarvis jerked from where he was drawing a finger through the fluid spread over his front, face drawn. “Yes, Father. Right away.” He crossed the room, disappearing from sight. Pepper found the tool kit and crossed back to Tony, opening it without being asked, and watched as his hands flew between the tiny body and the kit, grabbing tools and doing things she couldn’t really make out. It was the expression on his face that froze her in place watching, the fear and fierce intent. “And clamp that,” Tony removed his hand with a nod. “Okay, that’s the damaged area contained; now I just have to repair it.” Tony moved back slightly, breathing out a gusty sigh. 

Before Pepper could say anything the elevator doors slid open and Rhodey came back out. “Everyone’s shaken up, but okay, Tony. Barely even scrapes. Apparently Dummy was doing gymnastics on the top of the climbing frame and he fell.” He shook his head. “Just the accidents kids have, Tony. Not much you can do about it.” 

Tony lowered his head into suddenly shaking hands, and Rhodey was beside him in an instant, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay, Tony. Dummy’s going to be alright. They’ll all be alright. Kids get hurt. They fall down and scrape their knees - or in your case, their paint jobs - and it’s your job to pick them up, patch them up and let them loose to try again.” Rhodey gave Tony one last squeeze, then moved back slightly. “You steady enough to fix him up now?” 

Tony took a deep breath and shook his hands hard, bringing them up to dash a few tears off his cheeks before he nodded. Just then Jarvis reentered the room, a glass bottle filled with pale blue liquid and a coil of rubber tubing held in his hands. 

“Thanks, buddy,” Tony took the items from him, then looked at him properly. “Rhodey, do you think you could give Jarvis a bit of a wipe down until I can give him a bath later?” 

“Of course, Tony,” Tony briefly palmed the larger bot’s head, then turned his attention back to the still form on the table. Tony quickly opened a panel on Dummy’s arm and, with a little fiddling and the gentle application of a screwdriver he attached the tubing first to the bottle, then to Dummy. He glanced around then, realising that there was nothing to support the bottle - it didn’t even have any kind of hooks to be suspended from. 

“Here, Tony, let me,” Pepper took the bottle and held it upside down at head height - high enough above the table that it flowed easily down the tubing. 

Pepper watched Tony work with no real understanding of what he was doing - a feeling she was well and truly familiar with. After some time, Tony sat back and took a rag, wiping his hands clean. “That’s that. Should be one hundred percent now. I’ll wake him up, then I’ll give the both of you a bath, okay, Jarvis? We’ll get you all cleaned up then go see everyone. Come over here, buddy,” he gestured Jarvis over from where he was standing with Rhodey and hitched him up on his hip to watch. “See, Dummy’s fine. I’ll wake him up right now.” So saying, Tony laid a hand on Dummy’s chest, obscuring the soft blue glow until the moment when it flared brightly around his fingers. 

Pepper gasped, flinching away, then watched in awe as Dummy’s eyes began to glow once more. 

Dummy’s minuscule but perfect hands came up to grasp at two of Tony’s fingers, and Tony gave a watery chuckle. “Hi, there, Dummy.”

Dummy clicked and chirped, an almost whimper somehow emerging in the middle, Tony nodding his head the whole while. “Yes, well, your leg is going to be sore a while, buddy. I’m going to put a brace on it after I get you cleaned up, but you aren’t going to be walking for at least three days; if you want to go somewhere, you’ll have to ask to be moved. It shouldn’t take too long to strengthen and set the repairs as good as new, though. Now, you and Jarvis are both getting a bath.” 

The squeal that answered that pronouncement, timed as it was with Tony lifting Dummy up to cradle against the opposite side of his body from Rhodey, could not have been mistaken for anything other than refusal. 

“Yes, Dummy. You are having a bath. You’ve got energy fluid all over and in your circuitry and joints; you need to get cleaned up. It won’t be so bad - I’ll use those oil based bath products you like. Now, shush. This isn’t up for debate.” Tony headed for the elevator, and Pepper was forced to follow, still holding the bottle was was not yet finished infusing into Dummy. Rhodey brought up the rear, looking like he was trying not to grin as Tony kept up a stream of firm but gentle disagreement with Dummy, who apparently REALLY didn’t like baths. 

When they exited the elevator one floor up, Pepper suddenly realised what they’d been talking about in reference to ‘the others’. Everything had been happening so fast downstairs that she’d skipped over that particular portion of the two men’s conversation downstairs - the ‘others’. Now, there were six more of the smaller robots, all with different intricate paint jobs clustered just outside the elevator doors. 

“Yes, see, Dummy’s fine. Back up, guys, we need to come out.” Several of the bots turned from where they were sitting on the floor and crawled out of the way, while the rest walked, or toddled, back to give them room. Pepper was so distracted, gaping at the tiny robots, she barely remembered to keep moving, but Rhodey’s hand on the small of her back gently urged her forward when Tony started moving again. 

They found themselves in what wasn’t really a bathroom. A large sink, like a quadrupled laundry trough, was set in the middle of a stainless steel bench with a thick rubber runner down the bench. Tony carefully turned and set Jarvis down on the edge of the bench, sitting, but kept his hold on Dummy. Personally, listening to the ongoing (to her) one-sided argument Pepper had a feeling that it was meant to prevent an escape attempt. Dummy REALLY didn’t want to get in the bath. 

“Come on, baby boy,” Tony reached out with his free arm and started water running with the single push of a button. Since there was steam rising from it, Pepper had to assume that it came out at an automatically set temperature. “You do like to set a terrible example for all of your little brothers and sisters, don’t you, huh?” Tony smiled down at Dummy, then lifting him away from his body, carefully dodging tiny grabbing fingers and lowered him into the sink. 

The next ten minutes erased any possible doubts that could have lingered about whether or not these bots were just incredibly well built toys. These were children. Toddlers, really, and Tony had eight of them, with another on the way, apparently. She couldn’t begin to imagine how he coped, and the excessive amount of time he spent working from home now made total sense, as did the insane levels of security he was constantly updating around his house, and the level of paranoia he levelled at pretty much everyone in his life. 

She was startled out of her thoughts when Tony took the bottle out of her hands with a quiet thanks that she acknowledged with a nod. He turned away again, and Pepper was distracted by a tug to the hem of her pants. She looked down and found a tiny face staring up at her, glowing eyes huge in the delicate face giving the robot a very curious expression. 

“Hello there,” Pepper crouched down, head cocking to the right. “Who are you?”  
“That’s Dotty, she’s the oldest girl in our little tribe,” Rhodey supplied as, behind him, Tony crossed the room, still holding Dummy, and sat down on a couch. The two of them were instantly swarmed by most of the small bots. Dotty, on the other hand, was studying Pepper carefully, head cocked to the side. Finally, she turned away (although not before one hand came out and wrapped around Pepper’s index finger to keep her in place) and chirped demandingly across the room, head cocked to one side. 

“What was that, sweetheart?” Tony looked up from the couch, frowning slightly. Dotty clicked and chirped to him, and Tony snorted softly. 

“Yes, darling, Pepper’s a girl, just like you’ve seen on TV.” His eyes darted up to Pepper’s, filled with apologetic mirth, and she bit her lip to keep in the laugh. Eventually, she couldn’t contain it, and laughter just pushed its way out. She sank down on the floor, and Dotty took that as an invitation, climbing up into her lap and reaching up to cup Pepper’s chin in her delicate metal hands. 

A soft clatter from over near Tony drew Pepper’s attention from a staring match with the tiny little girl to find three more heading for her, two crawling. 

“I think the girls want to meet a human woman for themselves,” Tony explained from the couch. “The one walking is Gwyneth, called Gwen. The twins are Arla and Shaheen - well, only Arla is a girl, but try and convince Shaheen she should go as far away from him as the other side of the room, I dare you.” 

Rhodey chuckled and shook his head. “I’m fairly sure half the reason neither of them is walking, or even really trying to, yet is because they don’t want to do it before the other. Although, if they started now, they’d be the youngest to walk, wouldn’t they, Tony?”  
“Yeah. They’re not even a year old yet. They’ll walk when they’re ready , and that’s fine.” Tony turned his attention back to the bots clustered around him on the sofa, and soon Pepper found herself the centre of attention of a whole cluster and didn’t really know what to do with them. She’d not even spent much time around children of her own species; she had no idea what to do or how to act around these mechanical children. For now, she let them pat her hands and touch her hair, giggling when they squinted or turned their heads to regard her from an angle. 

Tony watched from the couch and felt a peace settle over him. This was right. This was as it was supposed to be.


End file.
